Posted on 02/19/2002 2:59:38 PM PST by Cameron
All you have is evidence that computer programs are made by men. That is evidence of absolutely nothing with respect to biological evolution. You are violating the rules of evidence and the rules of logic with absolute unconcern for the absurdity of your position.
"That's a recurring theme in our debate: I can always produce evidence of intelligent intervention, but you can never produce evidence of natural processes creating similar levels of order from chaos." -- Southack
Every living thing is an example of natural processes that lead to more ordered states from less ordered states.
The chaos exists largely in your imagination. Take an object in your hand, hold it out, let it drop. Does it drop straight toward the center of the earth, stay where it is, or shoot off in some unpredictable direction? I'll bet you everything you've got that it obeys the law of gravity. There are many such laws of nature and they must be obeyed. Some of those laws pertain to the way that molecules react. There is no mystery here.
"It's a pity that you can't move such facts into your side of this debate..." -- Southack
Your "facts" are not on either side of this debate. They are entirely irrelevant. Computer programming has nothing to do with biology. The tenuous similarity between codes is an artifact. It means exactly nothing. There is no conclusion about nature to be derived from the recognition that computer codes contain information. Why do you dwell on computer codes? Human language of any kind is an equally applicable example. And, of course, as already stated, languages evolve by a natural process largely dependent on exchange, replication and selection. Nobody designed any spoken language (Esperanto and Modern Hebrew notwithstanding).
"Was Life "created" by some intelligent entity or did Life self-form? When answering that question, one NEEDS to see how other mechanisms that store data, process data, and replicate data (e.g. computer programs) came into being." -- Southack
We don't NEED to see those things because we did them ourselves and already know exactly how they came to be. Again, there is no lesson to be learned about nature by studying computer programming. Rather, the opposite is true -- study nature if you wish to know about nature and then, as man has always done, apply what you have learned to the art of programming. Going the way you suggest is completely without merit and will lead to no improvement in either the understanding of nature or the ability to program a computer.
I might also suggest that you examine the role of the imagination with respect to the act of programming computers. Intellect and imagination complement one another in the role of creative construction. The imagination functions by sorting and combining unrelated bits of information to produce novel associations. This is a random process and we often select the results based not on their logical merits but because they appeal to our emotions. Try examining the role of various parts of the brain and neuroendocrine system in the selection process. Don't ignore either the reptilian hindbrain or the cerebral cortex. Finally recognize that your devotion to the concept of an Intelligent Designer is not a function of any intellectual persuasion but rather a long held childhood belief that comforts you emotionally. Admitting that will allow you to hold the opinion without any concern for the necessity of justifying it intellectually. You will be much happier for it.
The genome of every living thing contains a record of every change that has ever happened to the species since life first formed on this planet. That is why more than 95% of every genome is just junk. The only exception is for deletions which are discarded. Sequencing the junk permits a kind of mapping that sequencing of functional genes does not permit because the junk is not constrained to function by natural selection and so can mutate without effect. This serves to provide a molecular clock that can be calibrated against the fossil record and radioisotope dating to confirm dates of separation for related (all life on the planet is related phylogenetically) species. Intelligent Design hypotheses are strangely silent on the question of this genetic detritus of the evolutionary history of the species.
You are ignoring the fact that sharing of genetic material among all species is possible through the agency of viral transduction. Bacteria share genes through plasmid transfer between species. Again, you are ignoring the fact that the experiment of life is conducted on such an extraordinarily massive scale that there is more than enough opportunity for the opportunistic origination of novel useful sequences by entirely random processes.
That's mere conjecture, not science. One can't say that "every living thing is an example of natural processes" any more conclusively than one can say that "every living thing is an example of intelligent intervention." We simply don't have the data to conclusively say either, scientifically.
But what we can say scientifically is that the closest thing to DNA (i.e. computer programming) was formed from intelligent intervention, not "natural processes."
If that was true then it would conclusively refute and scientifically disprove natural selection (as responsible for the narrow issue of creation of life, at least) because natural processes are prone to losing data after enough natural events have passed, and only intelligent design has been shown to be able to retain all data for any reasonable length of time.
For instance, a rock doesn't retain the data for its precise original shape for its existence prior to being eroded by natural processes, nor do acids prior to interacting with bases.
Finish reading the previous post. Deletions excepted and mutation rates noted. It is the very presence of time dependent deterioration that is being measured.
This evidence is entirely and only capable of being interpreted in favor of evolution. It absolutely refutes intelligent design.
It is not conjecture. Living things really do exist. Don't you have a garden? Did you never have a pet? Ever been to the zoo? Every process that occurs in living organisms can be understood in purely natural terms.
Did you have an example?
???
Southack...up to this point I must commend you. I do believe I would require 24 hours worth of straight sleep after pouring out the mental and spiritual energy you have in engaging the different posters in this thread.
Praise God.
Isaiah 49:4
But I said, "I have toiled in vain, I have spent My strength for nothing and vanity; Yet surely the justice due to Me is with the LORD, And My reward with My God."
Wrong again. You've put the cart before the horse. I dismiss only your false contention that software design has any relevance to the study of biological systems. Think for a moment. Which came first? Did man invent the computer and begin to program it before or after he learned about evolution? Did it ever occur to you that cultural evolution is largely a mimetic process? Much of what you think of as intelligent design is just plain old mimicry followed by a lot of trial and error.
"We don't "know" how the first DNA sprang to life, and we have never witnessed abiogenesis in the lab..." -- Southack
Technically DNA didn't "spring to life." It is a polymer of nucleotide bases. These are molecules not living things. They exist naturally and can be synthesized easily with abiotic processes. RNA also occurs naturally and self replicates. It has catalytic properties. Proteins likewise occur abiotically and have enzymatic properties. These things oxidize easily and would be degraded quickly in an oxygen rich environment. Fortunately, oxygen was in short supply prior to the advent of photosynthetic pigments. That life got a foothold on this planet about 3.5 billion years ago is a certainty. That it began as something simpler than a prokaryote is a certainty. That species diversity greatly increased at the Cambrian Explosion is a certainty. That it occurred through entirely natural processes is a certainty. That we are the descendants of ancestors that once lived in the primordial sea is a certainty. That all of this occurred without any help from an Intelligent Designer is a certainty.
"...but we have seen computer programs execute in controlled environments. So while you've dismissed such knowledge, you've essentially thrown away all that we know about the only thing that resembles DNA on this planet." -- Southack
It doesn't matter that it resembles DNA in some trivial fashion. That Chimpanzees resemble humans has meaning. That Llamas resemble Camels has meaning. That DNA and computer codes are both sequences of stored information is irrelevant. The computer can be used to model DNA but is not itself a model of DNA. Until you get this straight your understanding will not improve.
Meanwhile, you have yet to realize that you can study the DNA directly. The software you tout so highly is just a clever toy. It will only mislead you because you have not yet been able to distinguish what is essential from what is merely a trivial resemblance.
That's not even an intelligent comment. Deletions do not refute intelligent design, quite the opposite, actually.
Natural processes have not been shown to store all of the data for their entire history. You can't tell what a rock looked like prior to it being eroded because the rock doesn't store that data (nor do the natural processes that erode said rock).
On the other other hand, non-natural processes such as computer programs have been shown to be capable of storing the data of their entire history.
Non-natural processes such as computer programming are incontravertibly evidence of intelligent design, so it is unintelligent to claim that deletions in data "refute" intelligent design when in reality the evidence of stored history (with or without deletions) strongly supports intelligent design.
"It is not conjecture. Living things really do exist
On the contrary, it is conjecture because we have no conclusive proof that the origin of Life was either from natural processes or from intelligent design.
This has nothing to do with whether things really do exist after they are created, either, since the central question is how they are created. That Life exists is not in dispute by anyone besides yourself (and only then because you didn't understand the very debate at hand)...
"Wrong again. You've put the cart before the horse. I dismiss only your false contention that software design has any relevance to the study of biological systems. Think for a moment. Which came first? Did man invent the computer and begin to program it before or after he learned about evolution? Did it ever occur to you that cultural evolution is largely a mimetic process? Much of what you think of as intelligent design is just plain old mimicry followed by a lot of trial and error."
Nonsense. First of all, you are wrong to claim that Intelligent Control is not responsible for the creation of computer programming. Second, you are going off on an unrelated digression when you claim to know that computer programming came about only due to mimicry (and wrong even on that unrelated "point").
What you leave unaddressed above is important, however. DNA, which you or someone like you called "nothing special" earlier in this thread, is the only thing other than computer programming which is capable of storing data, processing data, and replicating.
Did you have an example?
It would be trivial to demonstrate, though it would likely take longer than I am willing to donate CPU cycles on my machines to generate a long enough noise stream (it depends on the size of the program that has to be generated to prove it).
The reason I am basically dropping this discussion is that we are arguing whether or not proven theorems of basic mathematics are true or not. If we were arguing about the basic axioms of mathematics it might be a reasonable discussion, but what Southack is arguing above amounts to refusing to believe that "2+2=4". A "random noise" source isn't random UNLESS it produces every finite length string in a finite amount of time. It is in the bloody definition of "random noise source" and you can find the relevant proofs in elementary information theory.
If you are going to argue a point, at least pick one that could be viewed as reasonably contestable. Picking proven theorems of mathematics to refute is a fool's errand.
You were actually doing fine until that last comment. It does not follow from the other comments that speciation is due to entirely natural, unaided, unintelligent processes any more than it follows that different models of cars designed and built themselves through entirely natural, unaided, unintelligent processes.
"It doesn't matter that it resembles DNA in some trivial fashion. ... That DNA and computer codes are both sequences of stored information is irrelevant. ... Meanwhile, you have yet to realize that you can study the DNA directly."
No, it is obvious that I realize that we can study DNA directly, but what apparently I alone on this thread realize is that direct study of DNA doesn't (and can't) tell us if DNA was formed by a natural, unaided, unintelligent process or was instead formed by an intelligent, aided process.
On the other hand, DNA is the only item in our entire known universe other than computer programming to be able to store data, process data, and replicate; so perhaps it makes some sense to study computer programming and how it originated, since direct study of computer programming can tell us if it was formed via unintelligent, unaided, natural processes or formed via intelligent, aided, un-natural processes...
"It would be trivial to demonstrate, though it would likely take longer than I am willing to donate CPU cycles on my machines to generate a long enough noise stream (it depends on the size of the program that has to be generated to prove it).
The reason I am basically dropping this discussion is that we are arguing whether or not proven theorems of basic mathematics are true or not."
No, Illya Prigogine has already conclusively proven that random noise is incapable of producing levels of "order" more complex than a certain point.
And it is because of that scientific fact that you can never create a useful computer program of any serious complexity from mere random noise. So while you choose to pretend that the exercise is trivial (above) and unnecessary (i.e., already been proven mathematically and other such nonsense), the real reason is that you can't do it.
At all.
Ever.
Nobel laureate Prigogine has already shown us in Order Out of Chaos that increased levels of order (i.e. complexity) are increasingly likely to self-form naturally as you remove useful energy from a system, but this trend runs against the axiom that increased levels of order require more energy for their very composition. Clearly there is a point at which a system must have more energy removed, than would be required to comprise a certain high level of order, rendering that chaotic system wholly incapable of creating said level of order naturally.
I asked for an example of this taking place, not for a demonstration.
To an onlooker listening to all sides....you giving an "example" of your position is in no way "trivial".
Actually, you haven't offered proof of that claim per se. DNA could have been designed by an intelligent force, or DNA could have self-formed from natural, unintelligent processes, but from your presentations to date we see no proof of either (and without such proof, one can't make valid claims of either being the correct explanation).
On the other hand, we do know that computer programs are designed by intelligent forces. We also know that computer programs are the only known phenomenon in the universe that match DNA's characteristics of storing data, processing data, and replicating.
Even more convincingly, we know for a fact that intelligent forces such as Man can reprogram DNA via gene-splicing.
Thus, the scientific mind can view the evidence at hand and readily see which of the two possibilities has the most supporting evidence.
This is not a rational request for evidence. If me doing exactly what you are hypothesizing to be impossible isn't an adequate example, what is? You don't even grasp the obvious consequences to everything you think you know if what I asserted was wrong.
I will let you pick any source of randomness. It doesn't really matter as they will all produce any finite program in a finite amount of time. I can't believe that people are even arguing this point. It is ridiculous and founded in ignorance. People have done this at various times for decades (mostly at universities to prove a point), but it is a worthless proof because we can trivially prove it mathematically. So do you really question whether or not 2+2=4? How do you get on in the world? The mathematics of it is blatantly self-evident to me but apparently not to you. Perhaps you could take the time to read up on some elementary theorems of the subject we are talking about rather than insisting such things aren't so without the slightest clue one way or the other. Your mathematical position insists that no one can ever win the lottery, yet people do. The necessary consequence of the opposite of what I am asserting is that no one could ever win the lottery. By the exact same theorem.
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