Life's Irreducible Structure (DEBATE THREAD)

CMI ^ | Alex Williams

[GodGunsGuts]

Don’t forget about that pesky ring (which may, btw, be what we are arguing about)!

[CottShop]

[[Williams, to my understanding, is not asserting that evolution is “impossible.” What he’s drawing our attention to is the simple fact that, for a “something” to evolve, there must first be a “something” capable of “evolving.”]]

Unless I’m readign hte article wrong, I think he is stating that Naturalism is incapable of creating what we see in biology

[LeGrande]

I thought that you’d appreciate that one, since everything about naturalism’s ‘evidence’ is exactly so contrived.

Believe it or not, I don't like the TOE. It isn't elegant. It has almost no predictive power. It is almost like the standard model, filled up with observations, that may or may not be applicable.

I happen to think that gene transfer, viruses, and epigenetics are going to be big players in the future. Penrose might be pointing in the right direction.

[tpanther]

You can, of course, calculate the probability of cells assembling in one step via quantum leap, but no one asserts this happened (except, I suppose, creationists).

But there is no theory, and no hypothesis which specifies the steps, so I am at a loss as to how you calculate the odds.

How is it you have to have these "steps"? I don't know of any "steps" involved with the big bang theory....from all I've read, there's just this great big explosion...!Therefore it doesn't seem this is exclusive to just us creationists.

[tacticalogic]

Don’t forget about that pesky ring (which may, btw, be what we are arguing about)!

It may well be. If you carry it a little further, it may also be best if no one gets it.

[editor-surveyor]

"Frog species are disappearing at an alarming rate while cockroaches are not.."
"Question: is this the result of frog DNA succumbing to entropy, or is it due to disease or some change in the environment?"

Cock roaches require very little from their environment; mostly adequate heat. - Frogs on the other hand require quite alot. The slightest change can render a frog pond history. I see this in action in realtime up at our ranch frequently when I do maintenance work on the road berms. The redirection of the drainage back to normal can erase a new frog pond in hours. No amount of maintenance has ever eliminated roaches nor ants!

[js1138]

Does this imply that the cause and effect relationship will not work outside the controlled environment?

Do you have any evidence that it does?

Science has been explaining nature via controlled experiment at least since Galileo and his pendulums.

[CottShop]

[[Living things not enginered by humans conform to these constrints. Living things engineered by humans do not conform to these constraints.]]

Engineered things conform to different constraints because hteir genetic info has been altered (but it must be pointed out it has been altered fully within the constraints of the kind

[[I’m not asking you to accept that common descent is a fact. I’m asking you accept the fact that IF common descent is a fact, it places constraints on the kinds of similarities and differences you would find in related organisms.]]

I appologize- My head is really reeling- I’m just not sure where you’re goign with htis- What about hte cosntraints? What is this supposed to intimate? Even IF CD were a reality, how does constraints that might arise show that htere couldn’t as well be common design? I’m just havinf trouble tryign to udnerstand what you’re driving at here.

[js1138]

Its time to recognize the obvious fact that what you are calling "copy errors" are in reality pre-programmed answers (or functions if you are so aligned) to environmental conditions. Sort of a genetic branching statement, much as the development of an embryo is guided by a series of genetic "do-loops."

How stupid of me to realize that the bacterial genome was pre-programmed to anticipate Nylon.

But why does it take decades and hundreds of thousand of generations?

[editor-surveyor]

cacoethesresipisco

[js1138]

Take your time. I’m not keeping score here.

[LeGrande]

You've tripped over your own tongue.

Division by zero is undefined, but multiplication by zero is well defined.

True, I have been playing too much Go with theoretical physicists. Math discussions and jokes sometimes leave me confused : (

[CottShop]

[[Williams says his argument is “based on what [Polanyi]...argued.”]]

“Based on” Not exact- He developed what appears to be a biological reality- Polanyi apparently ignores this biological reality, and asserts that metainfo can arise naturally despite any evidence to show this-

[[Williams also claims that “Polanyi identified this kind of irreducibility as a naturalistic impossibility,”]]

I’ve not read Polanyi’s paper- so I don’t know if htis is true, or if Polanyi did at soem point admit htis, only to later say differently?

[tpanther]

TOE is not exhaustive, nor has it ever claimed to be.

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This has never been the issue, the issue is that it’s adherents more often than not are exclusionary, defensive and hypocritical.

Anything that challenges it’s holes, or inexhaustiveness or shortcomings, is often met like an army anthill invasion and labeled as religion.

Which reminds me, where is Coyoteman?

[CottShop]

[[Regarding language, Polanyi didn’t say he was referring to a child learning to speak, and neither did I. He didn’t address the origin of language; I was talking about the evolution of language in humans, not language acquisition by an individual]]

Same difference- He’s asserti8gn that metainfo arose gradually, and apparently htinks that a language example transfers to biological systems as well- my examples given in last reply to you on language stand I think- The metainfo had to be present first-

[js1138]

There are lots of things that can't happen in nature, putting an artificial heart in a human being

OK, but with evolution we are discussing basic organic chemistry. We design experiments to see what is possible. We do this because of a property of nature called emergence. We cannot anticipate all the properties of a new compound or a novel environmental factor before it exists.

We cannot anticipate the possible pathways to replicators without attempting to make them. And we cannot say anything about the probability of them occurring in nature before knowing what is possible.

[count-your-change]

“And if this is the case, why is it so important to demand that children be told things like “God has no place in science class”?”

Materialistic science wants to make the decisions about the nature and existence of God and you’re supposed to accept it because...well, because it’s “scientific” as though that’s the last and only word. Have you not seen that line reasoning in this thread?

science would have

[CottShop]

[[It’s not just you.]]

What’s not just me?

[tpanther]

I will add that we are in for trying times, and there will come times when these differences need to be set aside. These threads can be divisive, but as we have just witnessed, they don’t have to be. The less they become so, the easier it will be to set those differences aside when the time comes.

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Are you talkiing about godless liberal NEA types?

Couldn’t resist! ;)

[CottShop]

[[Note, I’m not making the claim that the experiment has anything to do with the origin of life (though it may). I’m pointing out that the existence of self-replicating RNA strands (however arrived at), falsifies Williams claim here:]]

It wouldn’t falsify it precisely because the metainfo is already present, and ALL the geneticists are doign is manipulating it- that doesn’t falisfy anythign put forth in the paper we’re discussing.

the ability for Autopoiesis was already present in the RNA- This just goes to further prove his point that Autopoiesis is a unique and amazing property of life—there is nothing else like it in the known universe...”