Posted on 06/08/2009 4:41:47 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Biomimicry: why the world is full of intelligent design
Forget human ingenuity - the best source of ideas for cutting-edge technology might be in nature, according to experts in 'biomimicry'
We humans like to think we're pretty good at design and technology – but we often forget that Mother Nature had a head start of 3.6 million years. Now, the way that geckoes climb walls, or hummingbirds hover, is at the centre of a burgeoning industry: biomimicry, the science of "reverse-engineering" clever ideas from the natural world....
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The issue was addressed. I even allowed for 250,000 times more potential cytochrome C candidates and demonstrated that even that large a number is miniscule in comparison to the universe being perused. And cytochrome C is a very small protein.
Computing cell is the answer. Research is demonstrating that fact.
And since you had no idea, I showed in post 49 (for the case of cytochrome C) how miniscule that number is compared to other sequences.
“The issue was addressed. I even allowed for 250,000 times more potential cytochrome C candidates and demonstrated that even that large a number is miniscule in comparison to the universe being perused. And cytochrome C is a very small protein.”
—But who’s to say that cytochrome C had to form at all for there to be life? If it can be demonstrated that cytochrome C HAD to form for life to exist, than perhaps the deck of cards analogy might fit. The gene for cytochrome C obviously DID form at some point, and thus variants of it are found throughout many different genomes - but the problem with your analogy isn’t merely that the protein can vary, but with the presumption that the protein HAD to form at all for life to exist.
Even if it were discovered that the universe is teeming with life, I’d be quite surprised to say the least if we found that another lifeform somewhere unrelated to life on earth has a gene for cytochrome C.
‘Lo dude! Have you seen Duesberg’s Sci Am article from 2007?
Science is all about "just so" stories. They are considered valid evidence "just so" long as there is experimental evidence to back up the story.
Please elaborate. As stated, this makes no sense.
The issue was addressed.
Yes, by me, by pointing out all the many things that were fatally wrong with it.
I even allowed for 250,000 times more potential cytochrome C candidates and demonstrated that even that large a number is miniscule in comparison to the universe being perused. And cytochrome C is a very small protein.
That's nice. How does that make your five-fold fallacious shuffling examine relevant as a model of whether evolution can work? Oh, right, it doesn't. Your attempt was bogus and disingenuous, and you were caught at it. Deal with it.
Additionally, your subsequent handwaving about the rarity of hitting an *exact* functional equivalent of cytochrome-c still utterly fails to deal with another fact of biological evolution I pointed out earlier, so why are you still sticking to this fallacious "exact hit" analogy? Read my Post #36 AGAIN (you know, the post in which I pointed out all the ways your deck-shuffling analogy was highly bogus), especially the passage which reads, "and even more greatly vast numbers are partially functionally equivalent (and thus a basis for evolutionary refinement)". All of your number-crunching attempts to pretend that there's some sort of probability argument against evolution fail to address that very salient fact, and thus are utterly fallacious. Why do you bother calculating things that don't actually capture the reality in any comprehensive way? Don't bother with your usual non-answers, I *KNOW* why you do that. Don't kid yourself that it's not transparent to just about everyone else too.
Computing cell is the answer.
Not when the question is, "why does AndrewC keep making bogus arguments against evolution and then fail to face up to it when he's caught at it", no. Nor does this "answer" in any way salvage the numerous fatal fallacies in your post.
Research is demonstrating that fact.
Whatever fact you're so vaguely alluding to here is a Red Herring, an attempt to divert attention from the fact that you were caught making a very bogus argument that falls flat on its face in five different ways.
Even if it's true that the cell computes, this doesn't mean that evolution is like shuffling cards, nor that crunching the numbers on card-shuffling is going to tell us *squat* about what evolution can or can not do. So again I ask, why the bogus card-shuffling dance, and why the dodging on your part when I point out exactly why your dance completely fails as a model of evolution? Evolution is a very different process from card-shuffling -- why do you pretend otherwise?
Focus: Tell us which of the options in my post #46 best describes your reasons for failing to admit that shuffling cards is a bogus analogy for the process of biological evolution.
—But who’s to say that cytochrome C had to form at all for there to be life? If it can be demonstrated that cytochrome C HAD to form for life to exist, than perhaps the deck of cards analogy might fit. The gene for cytochrome C obviously DID form at some point, and thus variants of it are found throughout many different genomes - but the problem with your analogy isn’t merely that the protein can vary, but with the presumption that the protein HAD to form at all for life to exist.
Even if it were discovered that the universe is teeming with life, I’d be quite surprised to say the least if we found that another lifeform somewhere unrelated to life on earth has a gene for cytochrome C.
You mean person. It's rude to disrupt the cartoonish anti-evolution platitudes with simple facts. Reminding them of the things they've left out when they do their simplistic "analysis" is just downright cruel. It's like pointing out to a proud child that his "design" for a flying car doesn't include any method for providing lift and thus wouldn't actually leave the ground.
What? The discussion is usefulness or beneficiality if you prefer. And we are talking about cells that require it to survive in any case. We haven't even discussed those sequences of length 100 that are certainly fatal to an organism. Remember the universe is around 10137 sequences.
What? The discussion is usefulness or beneficiality if you prefer. And we are talking about cells that require it to survive in any case. We haven't even discussed those sequences of length 100 that are certainly fatal to an organism.
Look, if you're not even able to figure out what he's talking about -- and he was quite clear in his explanation -- or understand why it's highly relevant to the kind of "analysis" you keep failing to do properly, then you should just give up now, you're out of your depth.
And if you *are* capable of knowing what he's saying and you're just dancing around to avoid the point, then you should *still* give up since you're not willing to actually have a real discussion -- playing these games is just a waste of everyone's time.
Either way, however, you've just demonstrated in a very clear manner why it's pointless for anyone to continue dealing with you on these subjects for more than just amusement value. (And believe me, I find these kinds of transparently lame antics hilarious.) You guys are never going to make the hoped-for headway against legitimate science as long as this kind of nonsense is the best you can do.
In your mind. There is always experimental evidence which can be twisted or explained away by someone ambitious enough. The whale is a mesonychid one day, then a artiodactyl the next.
“From my 30+ years of watching these people in action, this guy has it exactly right. The anti-evolutionists are all about undermining science itself, as well as public confidence in it. They are indeed, in every sense of the term, anti-science.” [excerpt]Only if you define ‘science’ as ‘that unobservable process whereby which all life is asserted to have in an unobserved timespan, originated from an alleged first blob of living jelly for which there is no known source, and whose actual existence is scientifically unconfirmable.’
The scientific theories and disciples opposed by Creationists include but are not limited to...
Radioisotopic decay
The speed of light
Astronomy
Paleontology
Geology
Plate tech-tonics
The big bang.
Basically Creationists have staked out an intractable position on their interpretation of Genesis, and deny any and all scientific findings that contradict that time line.
In case you need to be informed of this, that is not science, it is apologetics.
In your mind.
His mind has a better grasp on the nature of science than most anti-evolutionists, so...
There is always experimental evidence which can be twisted or explained away by someone ambitious enough.
...as the anti-evolution propagandists have been demonstrating for a very long time...
The whale is a mesonychid one day, then a artiodactyl the next.
No, it wasn't. If this is the nature of your best "understanding" of what evolutionary biologists say about whale evolution, then yet again you demonstrate that you are *way* out of your depth. No evolutionary biologist proposes that the transition occurred in one day. Period. Not even close.
Could some anti-evolutionist who actually has the first *clue* about evolutionary biology please come help out AndrewC? He's making your side look grossly uninformed, you might want to take him aside and coach him a bit.
Blah, blah, blah you assert. Read the thread. I was answering a question concerning the appearance of chance. That led to an assertion about having the time to do things. Which led to me showing that numbers get big quickly.
The thing about cytochrome C is that it exists and it is quite simple to explain modifications to it that still maintain function. The problem is to adequately explain its genesis without a just so story.
And the numbers outline the universe involved whatever you think of it. There are around 10132 sequences involved in the search space.
And I really don't a rats behind about what you think. Research is showing that the cell computes.
Look yourself. The point of discussion is usefulness not essentialness. He gets to name that number as long as he defends it. I used a number 250,000 times larger than what someone had asserted was beneficial cytochrome C. You guys through up your hands and say the calculations are impossible, well maybe for you they are. What ever method is used to search through the search space, its size is the same, ~10132. Live with that fact.
Thank you for providing a link to a paper which demonstrates that even the "genetic engineering" processes in the genome were themselves the result of evolution. Sample quote, chosen from dozens which affirm the evolutionary origins of these processes:
An especially illuminating example of natural genetic engineering is the mammalian immune system. This system evolved from DNA transposons and cellular repair functions (Agrawal et al., 1998; Bassing et al., 2002; Gellert, 2002).It's always nice when you undercut your own side of the argument by providing further evidence for the other side.
There is no reason a “chicken” cytochrome C wouldn't work just as well in a chimpanzee. There is nothing particularly ‘chicken-ish’ about the differences; both perform the same job in both species.
Yet for some reason a chimp has a “human” cytochrome C protein, and the east asian jungle fowl has a “chicken” cytochrome C. A tiger and a lion have a different cytochrome C protein than a bear, but for some reason a tiger and lion have essentially the same cytochrome c protein as each other.
So it isn't just that there is an amazing amount of variations that could perform a cytochrome c function, it is that so few combinations are actually used, and that they form the same pattern of evolutionary similarity and divergence that we observe when comparing DNA sequences between species.
I really did not think you were that dense. But you are! Get a clue on the use of words. The whale was classed as a mesonychid, now it is classed as a artiodactyl closely related to the Hippo and imbedded within the artiodactyls(if you believe the genetic evidence).
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