Posted on 03/23/2011 1:51:59 AM PDT by AdmSmith
The reanalysis of a 1958 experiment suggests that volcanic eruptions may have spawned the amino acids that contributed to the rise of life on earth
Scientific debates don't get much hotter than the one surrounding the origin of organic molecules at the dawn of life on Earth. New findings, based on a reanalysis of a 50-year-old experiment, suggests that ancient volcanic activity was the source of the very first amino acids.
In the 1950s, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey of the University of Chicago performed a series of "spark discharge" experiments, in which the researchers applied electrical sparks-- meant to simulate lightning -- to a mixture of gases in steam-filled flasks. As the heat inside the flasks rose and the sparks flew, solids were produced and were captured in vials that could be stored for later analysis. Amino acids were formed in these reactions and they provided support for Miller's hypothesis that organic molecules could be formed from inorganic gases.
(Excerpt) Read more at the-scientist.com ...
So you claim that the plate on voyager presently lost the information on it. Strange view.
So you too are saying that the plate on voyager presently contains no information?
It has to do with your claim "The mendacity is in the implication that it must have been some "mind" external to the observer."
And you are saying the plate has a mind.
In that case, adding more carbon will make the modulus turn purple.
How do we know it cannot be a property of the "stuff"?
No, but it certainly contains information in spite of your convoluted definitions.
What's the matter. Don't you like having words put in you mouth? Don't want, don't start.
JFilko!
Athyroio!
Well, you are the one with the dizzying definitions of information. And of course, you never put words in peoples mouths, "The mendacity is in the implication that it must have been some "mind" external to the observer."
I submitted only that it is an abstraction. I'm sorry you found that concept "dizzying".
No you also stated this - "Information without data is dogma." and this "Without a mind to organize and analyze it, it's just data." In fact, data is by definition information. Look it up.
There are multiple definitions of "information" in the dictionary. In some contexts information and data are considered synonymous.
I submit that simply having a random collection of unorganized and unlabeled data does not provide information. It would be like running a phone book through a shredder. All the data is still there, but the organization and structure is lost. Until that structure and orgaization is restored, it arguably provides no information.
Do you find that unreasonable?
Similarly DNA is just a molecule absent ribosomes and tRNA’s that can decipher the molecule and translate it into a useful protein.
If the DNA for the enzymes that charged the tRNA’s with amino acids was changed, the entire “language” of what the DNA “meant” would change.
Oh come on now, that is ridiculous. The dictionary contains information despite being unread. You may wish otherwise, but that is a fact. You conflate communication with information.
A dictionary of a language that nobody can read anymore contains no information until you give it to someone who can read it.
Similarly DNA is written in a “language” that makes no sense at all outside the context of a ribosome and tRNA “translation key”.
If the “language” of the “translation key” were changed, the “information” would be changed. Thus there IS no unchangeable unambiguous “information” outside a context that gives it meaning.
So information is whatever one makes up!? Sounds like a Darwinist.
No “information” only actually informs if it makes sense.
No sense being needed, everything being predicated upon nonsense - sounds EXACTLY like a Creationist.
Compare a lump of silver ore and a silver dollar. There is no "natural" process, whether chemical or physical, where that lump could transform from the ore to the coin.
ATPsynthase is a complex nano-machine which can not self organize through chemical reactions (and by the way, ATP is required to produce the energy for all other processes to occur...it has to be there from the start)
Blood clotting is a complex process requiring 13 dormant proteins to activate in a cascade, one at a time, to clot blood. What chemical process would store 3, 5, 7, 10, 12 proteins until the 13th "evolved", cause those 13 proteins to lie dormant until required, and then shut off the process before your body turned into one giant blood clot? That requires intricate timing and control mechanisms which, again, cannot be attributed to chemical processes.
Hence, the information to do all of this must come from somewhere (perhaps SomeOne) apart from the processes...an intelligence of great magnitude.
Bottom Line: information cannot be a property of "stuff"
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