Nonsense! Are computer programmers superfluous?! Of course not! Do computer programmers control every execution, every step, every replication, and every result of every one of their computer programs at all times? Of course not!
Posted on 02/19/2002 2:59:38 PM PST by Cameron
"It is perfectly possible, and that is all I need to know; all it requires is the right set of biases in the system. It is trivial to demonstrate a set of biases that will work, and given the thermodynamic chaos of the universe it is rather obvious that those biases must be occurring regularly."
Nonsense. That's like claiming that a fully programmed and constructed space shuttle will pop out of a volcano with U.S. marking on its wings one day given enough time and enough universes.
The fallacy in your logic begins with the idea that every level of ordered complexity can be created naturally, but Nobel Prize Winner Illya Prigogine conclusively destroys that argument in his tome Order out of Chaos.
Computer codes, languages, and hardware have evolved whether you want to admit it or not. Selection is the primary feature of that evolutionary change. Whether a single intelligent entity is making the choice from among a limited subset of options or the choices are made by corporations seeking to maximize profit they are still choices that depend on stochastic factors. The intelligent control you speak of is relatively unimportant save as a source of innovation and even then many important discoveries are accidental.
I am not sure what you intend to mean when you refer to Evolution Theory. Clearly the theory must accommodate all known information, generate predictions, and survive hypothesis testing. The evolution of life on this planet is a fact. The theory offers an explanation for the fact. Currently natural selection comprises the foundation of that explanation.
" It doesn't matter that you can give a name to any sequence of codons but can not do the same for any sequence of binary data/code. Just because you know the name of a sequence of three codons doesn't even mean that you can know from a random string of codons whether three in that series serve to code part of a gene for a finger or a toe (but hey, you can give 'em a name - chuckle)." -- Southack
I realize that oversimplification is a risk in these discussion because those that argue for Intelligent Design generally do not understand basic biology let alone the state of the art in molecular biology. Nonetheless, the sequence of DNA gives precisely the sequence of amino acids or the primary structure of the peptide if the initiation point is known. Practically every functional gene in some laboratory organisms have been completely sequenced and the functions of the resulting proteins described. Genes that influence the development of fingers and toes (your example) are also known. You might well be surprised at the number of human (and perforce Chimpanzee) genes for which effects are known. Same sequences often do the same things in diverse species so when you know the sequence from one and you find it in another you can verify its function quickly.
"Clearly both human programs as well as human life can be usefully modified by an intelligent intervention. Yet no one can cite a single unaided, non-intelligent example of either..." -- Southack
There are plenty of examples of evolutionary change in the history of human life. Bipedalism, cranial capacity, opposable thumbs, Vitamin C dependency, neoteny, dentition, sickle cell anemia, disease resistance and on and on. Computer codes are human inventions and that is all they are so it would be futile to look for one that wasn't.
"That's my point entirely, thanks. DNA programming is superior to Man's current level of computer programming." -- Southack
There is no DNA programming except by natural processes. Life descends from life in a continuum with modification. Population gene frequencies change over time. Chromosome structures and numbers change over time. DNA is not fixed and the record of life provides a timeline for the emergence of every new form. At what point does the imaginary Designer involve himself? If at the beginning then his work was too simple to have required design because self assembly is a known characteristic of all the biological polymers. If he intervenes at odd moments now and then he would have nothing to do because the known rates of natural change would already have done his job for him. If he intervenes continuously then he is indistinguishable from the natural processes we already understand. In other words, everyone knows how a computer programmer does his job. There is no clue as to how the Demiurge is supposed to have done his DNA "programming" and there clearly never will be.
"The supreme question for this thread is really whether DNA can self-form naturally, in an unaided, unintelligent, primal, "random" environment." -- Southack to Tortoise
Of course it can. For DNA or RNA The sequence of bases may not even be random in some environments. Proteinoid microspheres, for example also form naturally from as few as two different amino acids. These membranous spheroid surfaces have enzymatic properties and serve to sequester and align molecular species for interaction. Crystallization also occurs abiotically. The formation of DNA naturally is not an obstacle to the origin of life.
More importantly for this discussion is what happens to the DNA in living organisms. How does it change and how is it transmitted from generation to generation. In order for your Intelligent Designer to be of any use he would have to actually control all the mutations occurring naturally in every invdividual of every breeding population. He would also have to decide which individuals die without reproducing and who mates with whom where sexual reproduction occurs. He is superfluous.
No, that's not even close to being true. We are faced with two options for the origination of life: 1. that life formed on its own from a chaotic, lifeless, unintelligent environment, or 2. that life was formed by some form of intelligent intervention.
With those two options in mind, it makes sense to compare what we know about life to what we know about computers. Sure, computer programs have become more sophisticated, but they haven't self-evolved per se, what has really happened is that the designers of computers and computer programs have evolved (which means that the software itself is a byproduct of said improvement).
But that is NOT natural selection from a chaotic environment (i.e., doesn't support option #1). Instead, that is evidence of option #2, Intelligent Intervention. When you have an intelligent Man designing computer programs, you do not have Natural Selection, but you do have Intelligent Intervention.
To claim, as you do above in fact, that intelligent control is relatively unimportant misses the ENTIRE controversy at hand!
That's incorrect. Whether life self-evolved on the one hand or was designed on the other hand is entirely open to debate. One can no more claim that fossils support Evolutionary Theory than one could look at layers of discarded automobiles in old junkyards and claim that cars self-evolved from generation to generation. Sure, each model of car got better and had slight changes in appearance, performance, and functionality, but it was the designers of cars which evolved, not the cars themselves. The difference might be subtle, but it is unmistakeably significant...
"There are plenty of examples of evolutionary change in the history of human life. Bipedalism, cranial capacity, opposable thumbs, Vitamin C dependency, neoteny, dentition, sickle cell anemia, disease resistance and on and on."
From the evidence at hand, one can no more tell that those examples are due to natural selection than one can tell that they are due to Intelligent Intervention. One can look at generations of cars buried in junkyards and claim that the cars self-evolved themsevles rather than were changed by intelligent designers in Detroit and Tokyo, but one would be pretty wrong to claim that those cars self-evolved without intelligent intervention. The same holds true for fossils...
"Computer codes are human inventions and that is all they are so it would be futile to look for one that wasn't."
One could also claim that DNA codes are God's inventions and it would be futile to look for one that wasn't, and that would be just as unscientific.
For science, one must look at all possibilities to see what holds up to repetitive tests. In this case, we can see amazing similarities between human computer codes and human DNA programming, so it makes sense to look at one to see if a theory for the other might apply. Can computer codes form programs without intelligent intervention? If not, then since they are LESS COMPLEX than DNA codes, it's fair to say that DNA can't form without similar intervention.
Oh please. Gene splicing is not a natural process. Instead, it is an un-natural process called intelligent intervention. With gene splicing, DNA is modified by Man.
Already we have pigs and mice growing organs of other animals (and will do so one day for Man) due to gene splicing. Gene splicing is DNA programming, and it isn't done in a lifeless, unintelligent, chaotic environment (such as was required, by definition, to exist before the first Life was formed).
Nor is it sufficient for life, either. Just as various non-living acids can combine to form something that might accidentally resemble a small amount of DNA, so too can binary 1's and 0's form in radio waves and various electrical discharges; yet those random 1's and 0's don't make up computer programs, and certainly don't execute like computer programs. Likewise, mixing various acids doesn't form useful DNA, and certainly doesn't create living organisms. If it did, then we'd already be showing abiogenesis in lab experiments to Freshmen college students. Sadly, we can't...
Nonsense! Are computer programmers superfluous?! Of course not! Do computer programmers control every execution, every step, every replication, and every result of every one of their computer programs at all times? Of course not!
You are wrong again. Life is a part of nature. The assumption that there is an intelligent designer of life is just a special condition of the assumption that there is an intelligent designer of the Universe. Obviously, if life exists then the laws of nature in this Universe permit it. Your contention that life cannot arise naturally is patently false and those that make this contention have been fighting a rear guard action ever since Wohler synthesized urea. Every new discovery is another nail in the coffin of the long discredited notion that a motivated deity builds menageries of creatures with a DNA tinker toy set for his own amusement.
"When you have an intelligent Man designing computer programs, you do not have Natural Selection, but you do have Intelligent Intervention." -- Southack
This exemplifies the crux of your misunderstanding. A single man alone with his computer writing code is admittedly a special example of intelligent design. But that is not what is important to the question of evolutionary change. Expand the scope of your examination to include the entire society of computer users over the face of the earth. What do you see now? I see millions of men using and writing code by combining pieces and algorithms that already exist. Once the piece exists it matters not at all how it came into being, only that it is replicated and transmitted with modification for some other purpose. The butterfly sort is a simple example. Or code breaking algorithms. Or encryption. This stuff is everywhere but it was invented a relatively few times. Likewise there are mountains of discarded pieces of code that don't exist anywhere else than in the original form. Are you starting to get the picture? What works survives and is replicated. The more it is replicated the more likely it is to be modified and adapted for other applications. What doesn't work or is not replicated may become extinct. Evolution is what happens to populations, not to individuals. Only when you make the transition from the component to the systemic level can you construct the block diagrams and model the transfer functions.
"To claim, as you do above in fact, that intelligent control is relatively unimportant misses the ENTIRE controversy at hand!" -- Southack
I really don't see this as a controversy. I see it as a case of gross misinformation and religious doctrine masquerading under the title of "The Intelligent Designer Hypothesis" in order to justify a misplaced belief in a literal interpretation of Genesis. There is no credible scientific foundation for this belief but it persists due to the incredulity of its proponents and the impoverished state of their knowledge of biology.
Are you being purposely ridiculous? I for one have personally witnessed the evolution of the automobile from its very earliest form to the present. I and most of the other folks on this planet know exactly how cars are designed and built. We wouldn't be fooled by a visit to the junkyard.
We also know a great deal about fossils and the geological distribution of fossil species. We know about the geographical distribution of living species. We have thousands of years of records of the results of artificial selection on our domesticated species. We know entire genomes for dozens of species. Etc., Etc., Etc. Data -- Information -- Knowledge -- Understanding -- Wisdom. You need to get your hands on some of the data.
That's not only an incorrect "summary" of my position, but also wrong on its face.
You say "The assumption that there is an intelligent designer of life is just a special condition of the assumption that there is an intelligent designer of the Universe", yet that's not the case at all. The assumption is not a special condition of any such thing, but rather follows from the evidence which we have in hand of intelligent designers creating all of our computer programs.
You can't produce examples of computer programs produced randomly from any chaotic environment (i.e., nature), but in contrast to your discredited and disproven position, I can produce MILLIONS of examples of computer programs produced by intelligent designers.
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.
On the contrary, this illustrates your lack of understanding. The reason that it is important how a program or life form came into being is because that answers our central questions to this very debate.
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.
Once we accept that computer programs are designed and built via Intelligent Intervention rather than natural selection, we can begin to grasp that it isn't the programs that are evolving per se, but rather that the designers of computer programs are evolving and improving their creations.
It's a pity that you can't move such facts into your side of this debate...
Wrong again. Gene frequencies for sickle cell anemia are maintained in equilibrium in a population as a function of the prevalence of malaria in that population's habitat. Increased infection with malaria leads to an increase in sickle cell trait because heterozygous carriers of the trait are resistant to malaria while homozygous normal folks are not. Being homozygous for sickle cell anemia is fatal. Populations with the trait in regions where malaria has been eliminated experience a decline in the frequency of the responsible gene. This is natural selection.
"I really don't see this as a controversy. I see it as a case of gross misinformation and religious doctrine masquerading under the title of "The Intelligent Designer Hypothesis" in order to justify a misplaced belief in a literal interpretation of Genesis. There is no credible scientific foundation for this belief but it persists due to the incredulity of its proponents and the impoverished state of their knowledge of biology."
Then you haven't been paying attention. This isn't about either Genesis or even religion. This is about science.
Intelligent Control, which you carelessly and unscientifically dismiss, is the PROVEN method by which all human software programs are created. Human software/hardware is the only thing outside of DNA which can store data, process data, and replicate itself.
We don't "know" how the first DNA sprang to life, and we have never witnessed abiogenesis in the lab, 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.
For science, that's a tragedy.
But you already have. You think that cars self-evolved. But that's not at all how they have changed. An individual 1955 Bel Air does not swap out its own fenders, flairs, seats, and engine to become a 1956 Bel Air.
No, it doesn't evolve into a new model itself, but the designers of the Bel Air can make production changes and produce new models from the Bel Air concept.
Cars don't evolve, but their designers do evolve and create better models (it's just that those aren't the same cars being modified, instead they are entirely new vehicles).
So whether we are looking at fossils of Life or fossils of cars, we can't just say that either entity self-evolved. It's possible that each new iteration is the result of a design change rather than a random mutation.
From the moment of the Big Bang, this process, loaded with infinitely precise information, has guided all life, without His actually having to reach into our world and physically manipulate things, one way or the other.
Notice how genetic researchers are discovering that DNA clones, still do not perform as they had hoped, and their attempt to do God's work only exposes man's continuing imperfection. There's always a factor that still eludes us, and so it should be.
That's an utter non-sequitor. It has nothing to do with either our fossil evidence or with various models of cars buried in junkyards. Further, I'm not saying that natural selection is impossible. Your argument acts as if I did, though, and that's one of many reasons why it is a non-sequitor (i.e., has nothing to do with the debate at hand).
What I am saying is that natural selection can't produce out of chaos the level of order required for either useful DNA or useful computer programs. Once DNA and computer programs are here, natural selection can concievably reduce the number of computer programs or DNA life forms, but that serves no use toward creating distinct new, improved, more complex computer programs or DNA life forms (sans intelligent intervention, anyway), for that we've only seen evidence of designers giving us those new creations.
Such views serve only to obfuscate the obvious. DNA is masterfully complex programming. DNA is massively fault tolerant. DNA uses Base-4 rather than Man's puny Base-2. DNA contains data. DNA has built-in redundancy and error checking. DNA replicates well (i.e., copies itself with its data usually perfectly intact). DNA re-uses code (i.e., genes).
The question is whether or not DNA programming was self-created by natural, unintelligent processes in a chaotic environment, or whether DNA was created by an intelligent intervention of some unknown form.
The closest thing to DNA of which science is aware is human computer programming. Human computer programming can store data, process data, re-use code, and replicate itself just like DNA. Was human programming created by intelligent intervention or by unintelligent, natural processes in a choatic environment.
The answer for one is likely to be the answer for both, barring the discovery of evidence that would indicate that DNA is somehow not like human computer programming at all...
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