Posted on 07/04/2004 5:19:27 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
Professor Ernst Mayr, the scientist renowned as the father of modern biology, will celebrate his 100th birthday tomorrow by leading a scathing attack on creationism.
The evolutionary biologist, who is already acclaimed as one of the most prolific researchers of all time, has no intention of retiring and is shortly to publish new research that dismantles the fashionable creationist doctrine of “intelligent design”.
Although he has reluctantly cut his workload since a serious bout of pneumonia 18 months ago, Prof. Mayr has remained an active scientist at Harvard University throughout his 90s. He has written five books since his 90th birthday and is researching five academic papers. One of these, scheduled to appear later this year, will examine how “intelligent design” — the latest way in which creationists have sought to present a divine origin of the world — was thoroughly refuted by Charles Darwin a century and a half ago.
His work is motivated in part by a sense of exasperation at the re-emergence of creationism in the USA, which he compares unfavourably with the widespread acceptance of evolution that he encountered while growing up in early 20th-century Germany.
The states of Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Oklahoma currently omit the word “evolution” from their curriculums. The Alabama state board of education has voted to include disclaimers in textbooks describing evolution as a theory. In Georgia, the word “evolution” was banned from the science curriculum after the state’s schools superintendent described it as a “controversial buzzword”.
Fierce protest, including criticism from Jimmy Carter, the former President, reversed this.
Prof. Mayr, who will celebrate his 100th birthday at his holiday home in New Hampshire with his two daughters, five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, was born on 5 July 1905 in Kempten, Germany. He took a PhD in zoology at the University of Berlin, before travelling to New Guinea in 1928 to study its diverse bird life. On his return in 1930 he emigrated to the USA. His most famous work, Systematics and the Origin of Species, was published in 1942 and is regarded still as a canonical work of biology.
It effectively founded the modern discipline by combining Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel’s genetics, showing how the two were compatible. Prof. Mayr redefined what scientists mean by a species, using interbreeding as a guide. If two varieties of duck or vole do not interbreed, they cannot be the same species.
Prof. Mayr has won all three of the awards sometimes termed the “triple crown” of biology — the Balzan Prize, the Crafoord Prize and the International Prize for Biology. Although he formally retired in 1975, he has been active as an Emeritus Professor ever since and has recently written extensively on the philosophy of biology.
You are wrong about the monkey boy thing. That would be a handle you have dubbed.
People have been predicting end times for well over a thousand years. What makes you special?
Nothing wrong with doubt or skepticism. Nothing wrong with speculation qua speculation. Nothing wrong with invoking supernatural forces as long as you understand that reasonable people might disagree.
But the continuous and gratuitous use of the word "information", as if it conveys some nebulous qualities beyond the simple physical characteristics or chemical attributes of self-replicating molecules, is, to speak frankly, looney. That's why, when BB once again invoked the idea of consciousness being necessary to "life", I jumped on her post. And using "information" to try slip the same point past us all is disingenuous at best.
Now if you wish to believe that some kind of spiritual essence is necessary to sustain life or that some passing god imbued us all with that same quality, by all means, have at it. But to continuously assert that such a belief is "true" is meaningless within a discussion of evolution and insulting to those of us who might not share your worldview.
Finally, I would add that quoting the Bible (or the Koran or the Upanishads or the ... ) is equally a discussion-stopping non-sequitur, an insult, or a waste of time and bacdwidth to be quickly passed over and forgotten.
Nice to see you here again, AG. ;^)
Nothing.
Zeph 3:9
9 For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent.
Zeph 3:19-20
19 Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.
20 At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the LORD.
Luke 21:24
24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
Luke 21:29-31
29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees;
30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.
31 So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.
Regathered and back to speaking the pure language, Hebrew, which is required learning for the Israeli. One consent as a nation unlike any other time in the past 1900 years.
For the first time in history have Jesus' Luke 21 prophecy, and the prophecies in Zephaniah 3 been fulfilled.
So unlike all the other false prophets of end times, you have got it right?
I think.
I don't hold the timepiece. I don't claim any special knowledge.
defign "nigh".
Festival of Highly Elliptical Madness placemarker
The sun only has about 5 billion years to go. There is still time to repent, monkey boy!
Repentance is a change of direction, and a recognition of having been going the wrong direction.
How does this apply in the real world:
1. A scientist takes a naturalistic perspective, repents and recognizes nature was created, then seeks the Creator for incites into His creation as they pursue greater understanding.
2. A child takes a materialistic perspective, repents and recognizes happiness derives from having character not things.
3. A politician takes a "tell them what they want" perspective, repents and recognizes that all decisions can be based on a set of Higher standards.
4. A student comes up with his own idea of filtering truth based on his limited experience, repents and recognizes there is a filter for truth provided by his Creator.
5. A person believes their only legacy lives on through their children or accomplishments, repents and recognizes that, their life now, impacts that legacy for eternity.
The real "us" is massless, and by definition eternal. When I look at my child, I know there is a soul behind those eyes. When I choose to line that child up with God, I know from experience that they will have a rich life of meaning and love with the hope of eternal life and a peace that is beyond understanding.
If so, count on Nebraska to be spared. It's rained every day for the last week, and I don't think we've seen 90 degrees yet.
On the other hand, this is the first year I've tried growing potatoes, and I have Yukon Gold bakers as big as your head. So if Armageddon comes, the sour cream and chives are ready.
Again, sounds like a "great" guy.
Why do you compare Saddam to this Ernst Mayr? You think their equivalent?
And the idea of a scapegoat, while not exclusively Jewish, does spring from older Hebrew beliefs. It makes no sense. I cannot die for your sins. You cannot die for mine. Either I am responsible or I'm not. The pain and suffering I have caused(very little, actually) is upon my shoulders. The idea that someone could die to wash those sins away is kind of primitive.
Again, sounds like a "great" guy.
Why do you compare Saddam to this Ernst Mayr? You think they're equivalent?
And the idea of a scapegoat, while not exclusively Jewish, does spring from older Hebrew beliefs. It makes no sense. I cannot die for your sins. You cannot die for mine. Either I am responsible or I'm not. The pain and suffering I have caused(very little, actually) is upon my shoulders. The idea that someone could die to wash those sins away is kind of primitive.
{You} Not by biologists.
Which, dear balrog, is why I imagine this inquiry is being carried out by theorists outside of biology, notably from thinkers in the fields of physics and information science. It seems many biologists are most loathe to update their Darwin.... (Nineteenth-century science, BTW.)
You asked me if I had ever studied chemistry. To answer: Whatever generalist exposure I may have had to this field in the past, chemistry is hardly my main interest, let alone my specialty [I'm completely confident other people can do this subject better than I can. That doesn't mean I have no interest in the field]. So I gather that you feel this fact disqualifies me from having any legitimate interest in this subject, and that surely I have therefore no legitimate warrant to explore the question of the origin of life, to wonder about and seek to understand whatever mechanism life used to first occur in our universe, and how it has developed and maintained itself ever since.
Okay, I'll take up that challenge. FWIW.
Harold Morowitz proposes a scenario in which life emerged as a consequence of the self-organizing power of the elements of the periodic table, and that then the physical laws of the universe did all the rest. (At the same time, I gather he rejects the "primaeval soup" theory as a plausible paradigm.) Instead, he argues that, rather than beginning with RNA, DNA, or protein synthesis, life got its start as a deterministic result of the laws of chemistry.
Morowitz considers the formation of closed vesicles to be a major event in the origin of life. Under his theory the emergence of a lipid enclosed vesicle created a distinct environment in which metabolism could form. He speculates that these vesicles form when an amphiphilic molecule combines in water with another amphiphylic molecule with their hydrophoic ends joining in pairs. These pairs then combine to become sheets which form a vesicle with a primitive membrane which establishes a physical separation between the components of the vesicle and the outside environment. The amphiphylic molecules of the membrane would have their polar ends facing out into the aqueous environment and their non-polar ends facing the interior of the vesicle. The curvature of the membrane causes an influx and efflux of particles through the membrane. Gradually the interior of the vesicle and the outside environment have different compositions.
He postulates that the earliest prebiotic vesicles were photosynthetic. Among the molecules dissolved in the interior of the vesicle are chromophores, molecules capable of absorbing light. Using the sun's energy, the chromophors transform the vesicles into energy transduction devices converting light into electrical potential energy... [which] would operate without the benefit of amino acid catalysts, but pursuant to thermodynamically driven reactions favored by the periodic table of elements. Phosphorylated compounds would be possible in these vesicles which can generate coupled keto acids. In the presence of ammonia, these acids could ammonify and convert into amino acids and small peptides which adsorb on the membrane's surface and perform catalytic functions.... [Dean Overman, A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization, 1997]
And all the rest, as they say, is history.
Yet having said all this, Morowitz admits that the emergent stage of the genetic code is the most difficult to understand. To be brief, he speculates that RNA and DNA appeared as late events in the origin of the life process, rather than as early events. In his model, cells originate first, then proteins, then RNA, and only later the genetic code.
As George Johnson, in Fire in the Mind, has noted, "If Morowitz is right, the potentially unending regression...bottoms out in the laws of chemistry, which arise, in turn, from quantum mechanics. In the end, it is simple physics that gives rise to...the vesicles. Providing a buffer against the randomness of the environment, they allow for the formation of the delicate chemical arrangements which otherwise would be unlikely to emerge at all." [ibid]
To all of which information theorists might say: "Professor Morowitz, you have not solved the difficulties identified by information theory."
In a nutshell, these would be the the most salient objections:
(1) The information content of the genome for constructing even the simplest organism is much larger than the information content of the chemical and physical laws, taken altogether. Pearcy and Thaxton write:
A [physical] law produces regular, predictable patterns.... Biologists originally hoped to find a general law of assembly for proteins. And how did they expect to discern the effects of a law? They looked for regularities, patterns. It was when geneticists failed to find an overall pattern that they realized that they were dealing with something not produced by natural law.
The same reasoning applies to DNA. If we were to find regular, repeating patterns, that would constitute evidence of an underlying law. But a repeating pattern encodes little information. [see Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science for endless illustrations/demonstrations of this rather remarkable point.]
And in fact, DNA does not demonstrate a regular, repetitive pattern.... Michael Polyani observed that "a DNA molecule with a high order due to a strongly bound chemical structure would only be able to enter into the type of relationships which exist among all ordinary molecules and would not be able to enter into any communicative (linguistic) relationship with other molecules." [ibid.] (It may sound strange in this context; but decoding coded instructions is a two-way street; i.e., more than one party is involved.)
To make a long story shorter, "chemical structures formed by the stabilizing effects of chemical bonds cannot have any significant amount of information content. DNA can function as a code only if its base sequence is not determined by physical and chemical laws. Polyani maintained that all objects conveying information are irreducible to the terms of physics and chemistry.... As the arrangement of a printed page is extraneous to the chemistry of the printed page, so is the base sequence in a DNA molecule extraneous to the chemical forces at work in the DNA molecule." [more ibid.]
In short, DNA -- which may be viewed as an encoded instruction set or information source that a living organism must somehow be able to "interpret and read" in order to be what it is, and to coordinate the staggering range of integrated yet complex functions necessary to maintain its life -- is not a simple by-product of chemical and physical reactions. It is something more and quite other than that.
(2) Information theorists who have tried to model the complexity of the physical laws will tell you that, at the end of the day, such laws are extraordinarily simple, when you boil them all down. Compared to that, the level of complexity of a DNA molecule is -- so far at least -- virtually incalculable.
Somehow I think and do believe that the enormous discrepancy -- this vast gulf -- between the two is what we humans must understand, if we are ever to understand the origin of Life.
And I don't need to put God on the stage to say this. It is quite a simple observation, based on reason, observation, and the appreciation of expert insight into what is.
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