Posted on 01/27/2009 6:59:07 AM PST by betty boop
Edited on 01/27/2009 7:16:52 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
[[but I think you are going to be disappointed if you think natural processes cannot evolve life. ]]
I don’t beleive we are at all- and let’s not forget, that the tests done so far involve intelligent manipulation with hte creators taking oi nthe roles of metainfo BEFORE any such ‘creations’ take place- but I think this point does need to be examined and discussed both here and in the lab.
Simple code being worked out from higher code changes isn’t exactly the same hting as code just arising au natural, but if you have an argument to propose that might indicate it could, I’d be interested in seeing it— and I’m talking purely natural, none of htis controlled, protected, intelligently designed stuff- not impressed with htose type experiments
[[A few years ago there were few young people willing to risk their careers on this area of research, but it is heating up.]]
I’ve seen you make htis statement a few times nowe- got any links to such bold experiments?
[[They live until they are killed, or until the environment becomes unsupportive.]]
One hting that just struck me- we nkowe this how? How is it we know they are ‘eternal’ unless killed?
It is not merely true in some idealized world, it is a fact supported by ALL observations in the real world to date. There are no counterexamples of a code, where the origin of the code is known, arising from a purely naturalistic source.
...but chemistry includes all kinds of possibilities for evolving codes and code readers without outside intervention.chemistry includes all kinds of possibilities for evolving codes and code readers without outside intervention.
Such as?
How does chemistry get chemistry to represent something other than itself?
Cordially,
That’s what I’m wondering myself diamond. I know Demski thinks life might get information from nature, but everythign I’ve read abotu that is woefully innadequate when it comes to building a complex metainformaiton, and quite frankly, ‘taking cues from nature’ (such as ‘lava is hot- avoid at all costs) can NOT influence genetic code, but can ONLY contribute to survival of those species ‘smart’ enough to avoid lava flows.
There is soem reasearch that I know of that looks into RNA being the ‘beginning of life’ however, the lab experiments being done that proposed they ‘created life’ did NOT infact create life, al lthey created was an intelligently designed, controlled, intelligently selected for, and intelligently protected and directed experiment with designer RNA that does NOT reflect natural processes at all. All the experiemnt showed was the NEED for an intelligent designer guiding hte process super-naturally.
If there are other ‘bold studies’ beign performed looking into an alleged naturalistic rise of information, and not just some manipulaiton of informaiton already present at highly complex levels, I am unaware of those experiments, and liek you say- simple manipulation of chemical code only leads to more chemical arrangements, not biological arrangements. Nature can only work within the parameters of what’s available to it, it can NOT create somethign that isn’t specific to a ‘species’ or arrangments simply by changing code within the guidelines of the infromation available to it. For the kind of macroevolutionary change to occure, you MUST introduce foreign information from a higher source, but nowhere do we find any eveidnece of that happening in nature, and infact, species have several built in, designed, protection levels to prevent this from occuring except in ‘simple’ bacteria which incidently STILL remain bacteria even htough they experience simplistic lateral gene transference from other bacteria of it’s own kind
If something or someone doesn't kill a particular amoeba first, then it will surely not survive the "death" of this planet or solar system or galaxy or universe.
The only remarkable thing is that the amoeba is a living organism not programmed to die (age "naturally" - e.g. apoptosis.)
And, in my view, the more interesting question is how and/or why the higher organisms are programmed to die. In evolution theory, how would "nature" select in favor of death by trial and error? What is the survival advantage of death?
To the Christian who "does" or at least follows science, the observation might underscore a spiritual understanding, i.e. that death was added after the fact of life, whether biological or spiritual.
Of course if and how a Christian would see this would depend on whether he understands the following passage to speak of physical death or spiritual death - or both - and whether he views the first four chapters of Scripture as written from the Creator's perspective or the creature's perspective, e.g. whether Eden was spiritual, physical or both - whether Adam was made in the spiritual realm or the physical realm or both.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. - Revelation 2:7
For me, the observation points to the harmony between God's revelation in Scripture and in Creation (spiritual and physical:)
[[And, in my view, the more interesting question is how and/or why the higher organisms are programmed to die. In evolution theory, how would “nature” select in favor of death by trial and error? What is the survival advantage of death?]]
Precisely- very good point- however, I think the coutnerargument will be that there had to be a ‘tradeoff’ between long life and reproduction- however, if hte amoeba were perfectly fine livng htier life merrily, and livign for very long times, it woudl seem that there woudl be nothign that would ‘push htem’ toward the ‘need to evovle’
But the coutnerargument will be that certain colonies of amoeba were pressured to ‘adapt or die’ and even htough other colonies in other parts of hte world were htriving, these particular amoeba had to adapt- and so on and so forth for billions of years until we got billions of species that all apparently evovled from lower species that simply couldn’t make a go of it in their particular environments and ‘needed to evolve’ to a higher species and compelxity.
[[To the Christian who “does” or at least follows science, the observation might underscore a spiritual understanding, i.e. that death was added after the fact of life, whether biological or spiritual. ]]
I was goign to mention this earlier- that it could be argued that the amoeba that live very long were carry-overs from the original creation where life was supposed to live eternal- all species.
[[Oops. That should be first three chapters of Genesis, not first four chapters.]]
Ahh ahh you said first 4 so I’m holding you too it- Busted! Now you’re backpeddling- ahhh ahhh got ya-— you said the first 4- you can’t retract— you said hte first 4 first— No takie backies— caught saying somethign that wasn’t true-— ahhh ahhh
Beleive it or not, I’ve had peopel ‘argue’ like htis against me when I made mistakes lol
...the more interesting question is how and/or why the higher organisms are programmed to die. In evolution theory, how would "nature" select in favor of death by trial and error? What is the survival advantage of death?
Marvelous insights, dearest sister in Christ! As for this interesting question, it certainly creates an interesting paradox for orthodox ToE.
Thank you ever so much for this superb essay/post!
It is understandable that in the presence of an inadequate food supply, a balance will result. Some will die from starvation until the balance is acheived.
And it is reasonable that some organisms might "kill off" competing organisms to survive.
But it is puzzling that an undirected process, natural selection, would lead to "programmed cell death."
Count it all joy. A person doesn't resort to spitwads when he has ammunition.
What a marvelous exchange between you and CottShop, dearest sister in Christ! Thank you for this superlative essay-post! It's definitely a "keeper."
BTW, your observation that inversely-causal information involves temporal non-locality is spot-on, IMHO FWIW.
As you know so well, I am rather focused on the math, the geometry. LOLOL!
The question is whether chemistry can produce self-replicators that evolve. This can be settled by experimentation.
You can't prove that something can't happen by defining it as impossible.
A “bump” to let you two brilliant ladies know that you are keeping me awake.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My ol' chemistry prof used to give a lecture entitled "The Old Gray Mare", in which he traced the full life cycle of a horse. At the end, the horse died, and her carcass fed the coyotes, buzzards, ants, etc., then it degraded into soil to feed the nematodes, earthworms, etc. -- and decomposed into nutrients to fertilize the grass and oats that grew near where it died -- to feed the next generation of horses.
Truly, without physical death, there could be no continuity of life. For one thing, if procreation were not curtailed, the earth would soon be overpopulated and the eventual result would be -- death...
As dependent as we are upon fossil fuels, I feel it should be obvious that God's providential for living things includes the provision for death.
It is only man's ("in the image of God") soul/spirit that can (through the provision and Grace of our Saviour) branch to "exit the loop" -- and escape our programmed death.
[[But it is puzzling that an undirected process, natural selection, would lead to “programmed cell death.”]]
Especially when it comes to trying to get that programmed death from chemical arrangements.
I also find it odd that supposedly, DNA/RNA supposedly arose, yet in order to do so, there would have to be billions of mistakes witnessed in species- many billions- trillions perhaps, yet all we find are compelted codes in optimum working order (well, not really optimimum- what we find is that when tracign mTDNA back it gets puerer and purer- just hte oppositie for what Macroevolution would have doen if tryign to ‘perfect’ DNA, and it’s fully inline with hte biblical account where man and woman were created optimum, and degraded over time)
It does however seem odd that a species which lives a very long time, woudl then ‘feel the need’ to evolve programmed cell death to such a drastic shortneing of life. If nothign but propogation of the species’ is what drives species ‘evolving’. then it woudl seem that something that is more optimimum, somethign that lives a very very long time, would be quite fit, and htus ‘wish’ to pass along it’s gene code for as long as possible instead of ‘feeling the need’ to evolve programmed cell death
The development of instincts in species also seems to be at odds with chemical to man macroevolution- while it might be claiemd and hsown that thinking species, reacting species can react to environmental cues in order to learn from, and protect the species- it can’t be argued that simple chemical arrangements are capable of that, Yet we’re to beleive that rapid adaption resulted from chemicals all ythe way up to man. Either nature is forward looking, and capable of anticipating problems related to species surivival, or soem true intelligence forknew and anticipated and designed fully functional metainfo to adjust on the fly as needed
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