ID/Evolution and Michael Behe

[jlay]

Zoe, appreciate what you are saying, but not really what I'm driving at. I understand that evolution has no goal. But anyone, including Darwinists will speak of the function of the eye, kidney, etc. Yet recognizing function is standing on teleological grounds. That is taboo territory. Function indicates purpose. Purpose indicates that the eye, the kidney, are caused. And ultimately by design.

[zoegirl]

My guess is that they would rest their argument on the *success* of the function, not the purpose. If the eye works and provides an advantage...its function survives.

Mind you, not agreeing, just betting that their use of the word function is not the same as yours.

[wrain62]

Life is designed. But can natural genetc drift and natural selection design it? That is the question. It is really mind boggling to see that purpose in function comes out by chemicals being thermodynamically favored to be more complex over time. Nothing like this exists without intelligence as far as we know. How can this happen? Anyway I would still argue that it is not a coincidence that this would even be possible without intelligence during the process. But this objection of ID is a honest one.

Evolutionary theory in my view needa to prove not that common descent is true or that natural selection is a changing force in life, but that chemicals can become more and more complex in function with each other to form in a purly thermodynamically favorable fashion. People may say that by being able to imagine a pathway to complexity that that makes it thermodyamically favorable, and they ussually accompany their way by showing extant information about how living things change with reference to its ecology/environment. People may say that the very fact of common descent shows this. But does all of this mean that it is favorable or that it just happened? Probably but I do not know.

[Ivellious]

Be careful, wrain...it's ok to say that the likelihood of macroevolution is a concern, but don't say that ID makes that objection. Because if you look at ID, it makes that objection with no better explanation itself. Just having an objection doesn't mean ID is justified in bashing evolution just for that point.

[wrain62]

True. I think the objection can still exist though unattached. Even though I disagree with it.

[sandy_mcd]

Think about it, of course ones prior knowledge of the growth patterns of forests / trees play a role, it goes without saying, but it's merely a component thereof.

The question isn't "could this have happened naturally". The question is "which is more reasonable".

problem with this is that it is a matter of probability.

Yes, the question is precisely that - what is more reasonable and probable?
I am asking how one assesses "reasonability" and "probability". In the case of the trees and the other examples, we have lots of background knowledge about trees, forests, and tree farms. I maintain that when it comes to designing universes and life, we don't have that background information.

[sandy_mcd]

Well it's an entirely seperate scenario.
One does not draw conclusions or apply abductive reasoning by transferring the conditions of one setting to another. To do so would make no sense.

Exactly how I feel about comparing computers to cells.

[sandy_mcd]

Life is designed. But can natural genetc drift and natural selection design it? That is the question. It is really mind boggling to see that purpose in function comes out by chemicals being thermodynamically favored to be more complex over time.

That is indeed (pretty much) the question. But is "mind boggling" enough to dismiss such a scenario? Aren't a spherical earth, light behaving as particle and wave, moving continents, quantum mechanics, etc also mind boggling? "Mind boggling" is not a valid scientific argument.

Nothing like this exists without intelligence as far as we know.

But we don't know that intelligence is required. What would be a non-intelligent example?

[Stu]

Exactly how I feel about comparing computers to cells.

Again two different scenarios. Tree growth and lines of letters on a page are not analogous.
As I demonstrated earlier on, the function of human DNA and a computer program are.

And if you claim they are not -- then why does Bill Gates study human DNA to better his own software?

* the genetic system is a pre-existing operating system;
* the specific genetic program (genome) is an application;
* the native language has codon-based encryption system;
* the codes are read by enzyme computers with their own operating system;
* each enzyme’s output is to another operating system in a ribosome;
* codes are decrypted and output to tRNA computers;
* each codon-specified amino acid is transported to a protein construction site; and
* in each cell, there are multiple operating systems, multiple programming languages, encoding/decoding hardware and software, specialized communications systems, error detection/correction systems, specialized input/output for organelle control and feedback, and a variety of specialized “devices” to accomplish the tasks of life.

[sandy_mcd]

why does Bill Gates study human DNA to better his own software?

I haven't been able to find any reference which supports this claim. Could you please provide a link?
thanks



The computer/genetic system seems to be from Probability's Nature and Nature's Probability - Lite: A Sequel for Non-Scientists and a Clarion Call to Scientific Integrity By Donald E. Johnson.
I'm not sure what the analogy is supposed to show.

Stephen Meyer in The Signature in the Cell specifically states that the significance of the computer analogy is not in the comparison of similar effects. He basically says (p 386)
DNA is complex
computer code is complex
people (intelligent agents) produce computer code
there is no known scientific explanation for DNA
Therefore it is reasonable to conclude DNA was designed by an intelligent agent.


http://books.google.com/books?id=RUGKBd ... &q&f=false

[Stu]

why does Bill Gates study human DNA to better his own software?

I haven't been able to find any reference which supports this claim. Could you please provide a link?
thanks

Yeah, Bill Gates' book, The Road Ahead, (1996) p.188

The computer/genetic system seems to be from Probability's Nature and Nature's Probability - Lite: A Sequel for Non-Scientists and a Clarion Call to Scientific Integrity By Donald E. Johnson.
I'm not sure what the analogy is supposed to show.

Stephen Meyer in The Signature in the Cell specifically states that the significance of the computer analogy is not in the comparison of similar effects. He basically says (p 386)
DNA is complex
computer code is complex
people (intelligent agents) produce computer code
there is no known scientific explanation for DNA
Therefore it is reasonable to conclude DNA was designed by an intelligent agent.

http://books.google.com/books?id=RUGKBd ... &q&f=false

Yeah but your point was that you are uncomfortable in even making the comparison; so I was simply trying to show that it is quite logical to make the analogy, even if only as a starting point.

Well I have Meyer's tome, Sig. in the Cell, sitting on the shelf (still unread atm though ); and that review leaves out one critical aspect. In fact it is the key element that Meyer alludes to throughout the book, namely specified information.

His summary goes like this: the design argument developed here does not rely on a comparison of similar effects, but upon the presence of a single kind of effect -- specified information -- and an assessment of the ability of competing causes to produce that effect.

[sandy_mcd]

Yeah, Bill Gates' book, The Road Ahead, (1996) p.188

The snippet view I get from Google Books is consistent with this and other pages:

We have all had teachers who made a difference. I had a great chemistry teacher in high school who made his subject immensely interesting. Chemistry seemed enthralling compared to biology. In biology, we were dissecting frogs – just hacking them to pieces, actually – and our teacher didn’t explain why. My chemistry teacher sensationalized his subject a bit and promised that it would help us understand the world. When I was in my twenties, I read James D. Watson’s “Molecular Biology of the Gene” and decided my high school experience had misled me. The understanding of life is a great subject. Biological information is the most important information we can discover, because over the next several decades it will revolutionize medicine. Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created. It seems amazing to me now that one great teacher made chemistry endlessly fascinating while I found biology totally boring. (Gates, The Road Ahead, Penguin: London, Revised, 1996 p. 228)

So the analogy doesn't seem to have produced any practical results.

specified information ... and an assessment of the ability of competing causes to produce that effect.

Well, that and irreducible complexity is a different argument which appears to involve lots of math.

[Stu]

The snippet view I get from Google Books is consistent with this and other pages:

We have all had teachers who made a difference. I had a great chemistry teacher in high school who made his subject immensely interesting. Chemistry seemed enthralling compared to biology. In biology, we were dissecting frogs – just hacking them to pieces, actually – and our teacher didn’t explain why. My chemistry teacher sensationalized his subject a bit and promised that it would help us understand the world. When I was in my twenties, I read James D. Watson’s “Molecular Biology of the Gene” and decided my high school experience had misled me. The understanding of life is a great subject. Biological information is the most important information we can discover, because over the next several decades it will revolutionize medicine. Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created. It seems amazing to me now that one great teacher made chemistry endlessly fascinating while I found biology totally boring. (Gates, The Road Ahead, Penguin: London, Revised, 1996 p. 228)

So the analogy doesn't seem to have produced any practical results.

I think your source might be incorrect -- or you are referring to the revised edition.

Look it's not just Gates who makes the analogy, even people like Dawkins admit as much: "The machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like." (River out of Eden, p.17)

Well, that and irreducible complexity is a different argument which appears to involve lots of math.

Of course they are two different debates, I never said otherwise. Intelligent Design covers a wide range of issues.

Out of curiosity what are your (religious) views surrounding a creator, evolution, etc.?

[wrain62]

Life is designed. But can natural genetc drift and natural selection design it? That is the question. It is really mind boggling to see that purpose in function comes out by chemicals being thermodynamically favored to be more complex over time.

That is indeed (pretty much) the question. But is "mind boggling" enough to dismiss such a scenario? Aren't a spherical earth, light behaving as particle and wave, moving continents, quantum mechanics, etc also mind boggling? "Mind boggling" is not a valid scientific argument.

Nothing like this exists without intelligence as far as we know.

But we don't know that intelligence is required. What would be a non-intelligent example?

No it is not enough to dismiss the scnario. I know that leaving behind that work is stupid. It may very well be an example.

[sandy_mcd]

I think your source might be incorrect -- or you are referring to the revised edition.

Yes, it was easier to cut and paste; but the same lines are in the earlier version. No reference to software improvements based on DNA studies.

it's not just Gates who makes the analogy, even people like Dawkins admit as much: "The machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like." (River out of Eden, p.17)

Again, he seems to be referring to the coding aspect only; translating the four bases.

What is more, they are truly digital, in the full and strong sense of computers and compact disks. The genetic code is not a binary code as in computers, nor an eight-level code as in some telephone systems, but a quaternary code, with four symbols. The machine code of the genes is uncannily computerlike. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular-biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer-engineering journal. Among many other consequences, this digital revolution at the very core of life has dealt the final, killing blow to vitalism - the belief that living material is deeply distinct from nonliving material. Up until 1953, it was still possible to believe that there was something fundamentally and irreducibly mysterious in living protoplasm. No longer. Even those philosophers who had been predisposed to a mechanistic view of life would not have dared hope for such total fulfillment of their wildest dreams.

* the genetic system is a pre-existing operating system;
* the specific genetic program (genome) is an application;
* the native language has codon-based encryption system;
* the codes are read by enzyme computers with their own operating system;
* each enzyme’s output is to another operating system in a ribosome;
* codes are decrypted and output to tRNA computers;
* each codon-specified amino acid is transported to a protein construction site; and
* in each cell, there are multiple operating systems, multiple programming languages, encoding/decoding hardware and software, specialized communications systems, error detection/correction systems, specialized input/output for organelle control and feedback, and a variety of specialized “devices” to accomplish the tasks of life.

Yeah but your point was that you are uncomfortable in even making the comparison; so I was simply trying to show that it is quite logical to make the analogy, even if only as a starting point.

Yes, I am pretty unhappy with the analogy of genetics and computers. The DC electrical flow to water flow is a good one. It aids in grasping concepts.
I am not that familiar with either DNA or computers but the detailed analogy listed above seems deeply flawed and leads to confusion rather than clarification. There may be a very superficial resemblance in that both systems use codes, but I have been reading over the points since they were listed and am still totally lost.
[Bear in mind this isn't even going into specific details of the actual chemistry involved.]

A few examples:
the genetic system is a pre-existing operating system - what is the analogous computer it runs on?
the specific genetic program (genome) is an application - (operating systems are programs too) what does this program run on? how is it analogous to a computer program?
the codes are read by enzyme computers with their own operating system - but the genetic system was operating system? what system and programs do these enzyme computers run? Is the enzyme computer the same as an enzyme? if so, isn't that coded for in the DNA? Is this saying the operating system produces computers?
is it really encryption to represent 3 in binary as 11 or leucine as CUU or CUC or CUA or CUG (and why does one side have a unique representation whereas the other has four possibilities?)
last bit - and there are even more parts which actually carry out construction of materials - is this analogous to printers? where are the queues and storage devices?

I just don't see an analogy which applies at a specific enough level to be useful. It may be a starting point but I don't see it going anywhere. How can understanding one system be of any aid in understanding the other? We've got two complicated systems which have only superficial resemblances.