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To: Southack
You know full well that I said DNA systems, as it was the subject of my explanation in my very first post to you, yet even so, you deliberately knocked the word "systems" off so that you could attack the straw man of "DNA" instead of honestly dealing with what I said, which was "DNA systems".

I have clearly asked you to explain what "DNA systems" are; what they include; what they exclude. You haven't. The above, therefore, appears to be pure bluster.

Such behavior is beneath any professor.

You'll pardon me if I observe that the people on FR who insist on lecturing me on how I should behave tend to be those who have the least basis for doing so.

Now, if you truly want to contest the scientifically accepted fact that DNA systems process mathematical Base 2 / Base 4 commands and data, then just make that issue of contention plain in your posts and we'll hash it out until you come around to agree with widely accepted, mainstream scientific thought due to a persuasive presentation of the facts as well as due to solid logic.

'Scientifically accepted' by whom? I'm a scientist, and I certainly won't accept any such thing unless you tell me what you mean by 'DNA systems'. I doubt many of my colleagues would, either. Do we have to play guessing games here? Is a DNA system a cell? A part of a cell? Which parts of a cell is it not?

On the other hand, if you do NOT dispute that fact, then let's move on to the crux of the debate, which is that we are left to choose between EITHER as yet unknown, unaided natural processes being responsible for sequencing into precise order the billions of genetic instructions in DNA, -OR- that intelligent intervention is responsible for programming all currently known Base 2 / Base 4 instruction sets.

Stripped of all the Turing stuff, this is just the old probabilistic argument, redux. So let me give you my answer. The billions of bases in a human genome did not reach their current state all at once; they evolved from simpler genomes. There is a vast body of evidence, from the study of the genomes and partial genomes of literally hundreds of organisms, that a large part of the process was the duplication of genes, a well understood process, followed by random mutation and separate selection towards divergent functions. So we can look at the genome of the tunicate, for example, and trace the ancestry of our own genes to a common ancestor of the tunicate; but several of our genes typically will have evolved from a single ancestral gene which corresponds to only a single gene in the modern tunicate.

So we do have an explanation how a much smaller genome became a much larger one. And that, in essence, is the process evolution purports to explain. Where the original genome came from, how it arose, is a question for which we have almost no scientific data, and while some people like to speculate on it, or to come up with possible mechanisms (and both are valid pursuits) , to pretend we know any more than that is silly; and textbook authors and other who give a contrary impression are wrong.

603 posted on 02/18/2003 6:38:12 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: All
PatrickHenry remains aloof.
604 posted on 02/18/2003 6:48:55 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas)
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To: Right Wing Professor
"Stripped of all the Turing stuff, this is just the old probabilistic argument, redux. So let me give you my answer. The billions of bases in a human genome did not reach their current state all at once; they evolved from simpler genomes."

That's an interesting theory, of course, but we simply have no scientific evidence on hand wherein an unguided, unaided, unintelligent "natural" process ever programmed/evolved/created/formed the Base 2 / Base 4 genetic instructions/data for any functional genome (not even a "simple" one).

Furthermore, that sort of theory which you advance above contradicts this: A Tiny Mathematical Proof Against Evolution [AKA - Million Monkeys Can't Type Shakespeare]

So not only does the evidence at hand fail to support your theory above, but so does the math.

That's a pretty weak position in which to place yourself.

606 posted on 02/18/2003 7:46:19 PM PST by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Right Wing Professor
"I have clearly asked you to explain what "DNA systems" are; what they include; what they exclude."

So you did (what, all of one or two posts ago).

And here's my definition:

DNA System: The complete cellular system that processes the genetic instructions and data stored in DNA.

607 posted on 02/18/2003 7:51:33 PM PST by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Right Wing Professor
My apologies, I meant to post my "still not debating" comment here.
610 posted on 02/19/2003 6:01:24 AM PST by 70times7
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To: Right Wing Professor
...textbook authors and other who give a contrary impression are wrong.

The textbook publishing cycle, combined with the pruchasing cycle, combined with the conflicting motives for purchase, guarantee that textbooks are at least ten years out-of-date, insipid, boring, and generally useless. I can't figure out why anyone finds them worth fighting about.

613 posted on 02/19/2003 7:02:35 AM PST by js1138
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