Posted on 01/20/2005 12:54:58 PM PST by Jay777
ANN ARBOR, MI — The small town of Dover, Pennsylvania today became the first school district in the nation to officially inform students of the theory of Intelligent Design, as an alternative to Darwin’s theory of Evolution. In what has been called a “measured step”, ninth grade biology students in the Dover Area School District were read a four-paragraph statement Tuesday morning explaining that Darwin’s theory is not a fact and continues to be tested. The statement continued, “Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view.” Since the late 1950s advances in biochemistry and microbiology, information that Darwin did not have in the 1850s, have revealed that the machine like complexity of living cells - the fundamental unit of life- possessing the ability to store, edit, and transmit and use information to regulate biological systems, suggests the theory of intelligent design as the best explanation for the origin of life and living cells.
Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm representing the school district against an ACLU lawsuit, commented, “Biology students in this small town received perhaps the most balanced science education regarding Darwin’s theory of evolution than any other public school student in the nation. This is not a case of science versus religion, but science versus science, with credible scientists now determining that based upon scientific data, the theory of evolution cannot explain the complexity of living cells.”
“It is ironic that the ACLU after having worked so hard to prevent the suppression of Darwin’s theory in the Scopes trial, is now doing everything it can to suppress any effort to challenge it,” continued Thompson.
(Excerpt) Read more at thomasmore.org ...
Well I'm sure Dataman and I both consider evolution to be a lot less science and a lot more speculation, based less on observable facts than most science and a lot more on biased and faulty interpretation of evidence.
Didn't realize I had been asked to. demonstrating abiogenesis is impossible doesn't directly falsify common descent. But it does undermine the uniformitarianism and naturalism philosophy underlying common descent.
If a designer, ET, or God was required to provide the initial life form, then it is not only plausible, but likely that the designer, ET or God would mold higher life forms into what they wanted.
Thus, once God or a designer is considered as any part of the solution, it becomes logical that the Cambrian Explosion is attributed to that same force rather than natural selection.
I'm even older. His statement is a lie.
I appreciate your oft-repeated sentiment along those lines. But, your shannon-communication definition of life, even if simple and elegant by itself, does not provide a clear or sharp demarcation between life and non-life. And that has nothing to do with a limitation of math nor a limitation of the physical world or a physical discription, nor, as you imply, a limited ability to communicate about it. It's quite simply that the model doesn't fit the data completely. Examples are simple organic molecules and artifical life systems. At any rate, this model brings one much closer to the fringes of life and greatly shortens the distance from life to non-life than most biological definitions. It's far easier to conceptualize, using your definition, how spontaneous generation of communication can occur in an molecular soup.
...Hence, the difficulty in our making a “connection.” Perhaps we ought to quit trying?
That's generous of you. Please feel welcome to jump in, again, any time. In any case, thank you for your posts.
It was an interesting read – very much focused on the von Neumann challenge. Most every article was a computer simulation or theoretical model. The others were artificial chemistry and synthetic molecules. Of those, the Rebek was the most interesting of course. Rebek’s claim to fame was AATE, a synthetic molecule which could replicate in a solution which consisted of its own components (chloroform solution of amines and esters). The replication itself gains no information or complexity, allows no new reactants, and does not represent the environment which would exist in primordial earth scenarios (hydro or clay).
Synthetic molecules and artificial chemistry are quite useful in many ways but, obviously, neither are “natural” and thus are not particularly useful in either defining the difference between life and non-life/death – or completing a model for abiogenesis – unless of course one is focused on self-replication as “the” primary characteristic of life.
Personally, I think such a focus is ill-advised because purely inorganic chemicals can have the appearance of mindless self-replication, for instance Self-Propagating High-Temperature Synthesis.
IMHO, the intended feature in natural life is poorly characterized by the simple phrase, “self-replication”. It is self-replication to be sure, but more significantly – at the global governance of the whole organism (bacteria, amoeba, bird, cat, man) – it is the “will to live”, the “want to live” or “struggle to survive” The successful communication of the molecular machinery which comprise the organism is organized to that purpose. Self-replication is moot without life.
Incidentally, when we were going down the Shannon-Weaver path in investigating abiogenesis, self-replication was not on the menu for research - the issues were the rise of information (the successful communications itself), autonomy, semiosis and complexity.
When we were investigating abiogenesis using Shannon (which did give it a level playing field as you suggest) - we surmissed that there was no origin for information (defined by Shannon and paraphrased "successful communication") in space/time. We had looked at Kauffman and dismissed Maxwell's demon but we hadn't yet considered string theory or geometry.
It sounds like you have a idea how communications might have been bootstrapped into a primordial soup or primordial pizza. I'm very, very curious what you have in mind!
I didn't notice that it wasn't on the list. Now that I think about it, although it's certainly characteristic of the life I'm familiar with, perhaps it's not needed. What is really needed is self-assembly. Or maybe this shows how premature our questions are, if we don't even have all the factors nailed down.
Anyway, I know you want to keep the conversation limited to natural life, whatever that may be, so I won't comment further along these lines.
Again, I think you just don't understand the comparison. When the fathers wrote about the Creeds, it would be line by line. An entire book. But yet, there was that creed, nonetheless. A succinct statement of the Faith. And if you'll recall, the point of that was the suspicion that much could be written about the Faith, so much could be written about a scientific field. And yet in science, people must be clear about what they mean. There is an efficiency in the formulas, and a clarity of definition, if there is. But evolution remain a vague superstition by comparison, as you yourself have demonstrated. Is it science?
I understand the comparison fully. A table of contents is a shorthand reference guide to a book, it is not the book itself, it is by no means a complete representation of the book, but will help you to understand and navigate the book. That is an absolute perfect metaphor for the Creeds.
People in science ARE clear about what they mean, but very little of science can be dropped down to one sentence. The goal of science is not efficiency, it's precision and accuracy. All scientific investigation is about coming up with the most accurate and precise explanation of that subject possible, and if that explanation can't be done efficiently well that's too damn bad. The goal is the total truth, a complete understanding accurate in all it's parts, by it's very nature this will not be efficient.
Evolution is not vague, and not a superstition. It is a very young science that has a lot to learn, I haven't demonstrated anything about evolution. I've told you repeatedly that I do not have the background to make a useful statement on the current dominant theories of evolution. I also lack the background to make a useful statement on the current dominant theories of orbital mechanics, doesn't mean either is vague, just means your demanding the wrong answers from the wrong person. Evolution is CLEARLY science, and the fact that the only method you can find to fight it is by making unreasonable demands that NO science could accomplish proves it.
If not one, then two, or three. And no scientist would agree with you. If it takes two chapters to explain a theory, then either there is no theory, or you are attempting to explain everything at once, even if someone did not ask for every detail.
Evolution is not vague, and not a superstition. It is a very young science
Evolution seems superstitious both in that it claims to be science yet defies description, as we see on numerous threads here, elsewhere, and down through recent history, and in that it seems an imperative, even if left undefined, particularly if left undefined in the realm of the mysterious. Is it science? If so, how does the basic statement of the theory read? even if one dares to grant a similarly vague 'fact' if only for sake of argument. State the theory.
Science is science. And speculative philosophy and pseudo-religion is just that. Is evolution a science?
Not to persuade you, but for the lurkers:
Is Evolution Science? It certainly is. Here's why.
Evolution as Fact and Theory by Stephen Jay Gould.
You're just cutting and pasting your posts, at this point? You want the last word, I would assume. Have at it.
No, not one, not two, not three. Often not 300. Sorry the scientist do agree with me, efficiency is not now nor has it ever been the goal of science. Precision and accuracy, those are the goals, always and forever. Efficiency is the goal of psuedoscience, efficiency is how people BS others into believing that which is not the truth. Reality simply cannot be reduced to soundbites. If it takes two chapters to explain a theory you're probably short sheeting it.
Evolution does not defy description. Creationists ignore the descriptions given. You've gotten more description in this thread than you deserve, and all you do is stick your fingers in your ears and yell "LALALALALALA you are not giving me a description". Take your fingers out of your ears, shut your yap, and pay attention. The superstition here is your ignoring the data that has been put in front of you, you've been lead to water, your lack of drinking is your own damn fault.
Science is science, and reworking theories to include new data is the ESSENCE of science. And the fact that evolution keeps doing that proves irrefutably that it is science.
In all of his writing, did the late Gould ever state - the theory of evolution. He published prolifically.
Nope retyping from scratch. But reality is reality, if you want some copying and pasting (it's not cutting and pasting because nothing is being deleted, sorry software industry pet peave, 99% of time when people say "cutting and pasting" what's really happening is copying and pasting no cutting, and it really irritates me when people fog up the difference between CTRL-C and CTRL-X) here's some from the dictionary:
a table or list of topics in a book, showing their order and the place where they may be found: a summary.
a list of divisions (chapters or articles) and the pages on which they start.
You see plainly how the table of contents are not the whole, but merely a representation and guide to the whole, not a substitute but merely a map.
When it looks merely cut n paste? Last word, then?
The difference between self-replication and self-assembly can be conceptualized in the development of an embryo. If the "objective" were simply replication the cells would multiply only themselves, there'd be no machinery, no organism. To the eye, the resulting "organism" might "look" like a tumor. Instead there is a cooperation - a will to live - whereby the organism, as you say, self-assembles.
In the abiogenesis "RNA world" model, as Rocha said, it would require a toggling back and forth between autonomous/non-autonomous states to give rise to symbols (semiosis) in support of self-organizing complexity.
Even so, the objective of successful communication [information] in nature appears to be the will to live. And I would aver that we do not have a complete abiogenesis model until there exists a plausible theory for the origin of information in the universe. There are a few possibilites we had not yet explored - a universal or inter-dimensional field, fluctuations in the geometry that gives rise to strings, harmonics in the universe. Moreover, all of these may be related.
So sadly, I must agree that the other part of your statement is likely also true, i.e. ” Or maybe this shows how premature our questions are, if we don't even have all the factors nailed down.” Myriad biologists and chemists are approaching the characteristics of emerging life using laboratory methods - meanwhile theorists like Rocha and Kauffman are approaching the structures of emerging life mathematically.
Without agreement as to the root question - ”in nature, what is life? - either side is liable to make a declaration of victory unacceptable to the other.
Maybe. Or maybe, at the simplest level, it's just chemistry, and what we see in more complex structures appears as an emergent property. I don't know.
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