You keep repeating this, but keep ignoring the question of Bucephalus' feet. Can you explain how it came to have individual toes rather than hooves? This is the third time I have asked, and your failure to answer hasn't gone unnoticed.
Creationist argument about DNA and information
- Thread starter barehl
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You keep repeating this, but keep ignoring the question of Bucephalus' feet. Can you explain how it came to have individual toes rather than hooves? This is the third time I have asked, and your failure to answer hasn't gone unnoticed.
Roger Ramjets
Philosopher
If it's not an analogy then it's just plain wrong. Software works only inside a computer (a man-made device). Therefore the phrase "Software of Life" cannot be anything other than analogy.Daniel said:
Correct. It is not 'a code' - it is the Genetic Code. The word 'code' has different meanings in different contexts. For example, 'Code Blue' (a medical emergency level) is not the same as 'Computer Code' (a software program), which is nothing like a 'Dress Code' (a rule of conduct), which is in no way related to 'Genetic Code' (the scientific name for a DNA sequence).
Definition of code
1.
a. A system of signals used to represent letters or numbers in transmitting messages.
b. A system of symbols, letters, or words given certain arbitrary meanings, used for transmitting messages requiring secrecy or brevity.
c. An access code.
d. A special command, such as a sequence of keystrokes, that allows a user to activate a hidden or accidental feature in a computer program or video game.
2. A system of symbols and rules used to represent instructions to a computer; a computer program.
3. Genetics The genetic code.
4.
a. A systematically arranged and comprehensive collection of laws.
b. A systematic collection of regulations or rules of procedure or conduct: a building code.
5. Medicine Code blue.
a. A system of signals used to represent letters or numbers in transmitting messages.
b. A system of symbols, letters, or words given certain arbitrary meanings, used for transmitting messages requiring secrecy or brevity.
c. An access code.
d. A special command, such as a sequence of keystrokes, that allows a user to activate a hidden or accidental feature in a computer program or video game.
2. A system of symbols and rules used to represent instructions to a computer; a computer program.
3. Genetics The genetic code.
4.
a. A systematically arranged and comprehensive collection of laws.
b. A systematic collection of regulations or rules of procedure or conduct: a building code.
5. Medicine Code blue.
Making up your own definitions is a DISHONEST debating tactic - and will get you nowhere.
Can't refute the facts so attack the source, huh? An 8 year old can do that...Daniel said:
RussDill
Philosopher
Let's say you are browsing the Internet, and happen upon a news site:
http://clickotron.com/
Who created the information in these interesting headlines? The information is certainly coded with a code we are familiar with, the English language, but the message that has been encoded, who created it? Was it an intelligent agent?
So "Na'ahh", is your response eh? How Scientific of you.
So the Genetic Code is NOT a CODE, eh? But it's in your definition of a CODE
You planning on hammering the c4 fire some more?
ps. Who is the Author of each CODE in your definition:
a. Intelligent Agency
b. Natural Law
??
Sir, To say "No GOD" (among numerous other Scientific and Logical trainwrecks) you must believe....
Nature/Natural Law Can Create Information/Code/Software... since these are the sine qua non of life.
This is Blind-Faith "Religion", unless you can Validate it.
Go ahead....?
regards
Maurice Ledifficile
Lost in translation
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Life is not information. DNA is not a code. The word software only ever applies to computers.
And yet nature does create those things because humans are natural and are bound by exactly the same laws of physics and chemistry as everything else.
I Am The Scum
Philosopher
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Daniel has been asked multiple times what the "agreeing parties" are in the DNA "code," or what the "message" in DNA is. He's not going to answer because he knows he can't. Just distractions all the way down.
Roger Ramjets
Philosopher
Not my definition, THE definition.
It's (a) In all cases EXCEPT 'Genetic Code'. Which is irrelevant. Just because a word has one meaning in certain contexts doesn't mean it has to in all of them, and no conclusions can be drawn from the exception.
Here's another example:-
Electron Spin
What exactly is the 'spin' of subatomic particles?
You can 'spin' it as much as you like, but the FACT remains that the term 'code' in 'Genetic Code' has a different meaning than it does in other contexts such as 'Dress Code' or 'Code Blue'. Just because scientists may take a word that normally describes a human activity to label a natural phenomena, does not mean that they are ascribing an 'intelligent agency' to it. Even an 8 year old can see that...
Perpetual Student
Illuminator
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Nothing but semantics! No logic, no science, no sense!
turingtest
Mistral, mistral wind...
Oh, I see the game here...
"Na'ahh" is not an cogent argument or position.
Mmmmm, more like simply asserting it, then circling right back around to it, by things like this...
Duhhhh...has anyone said anything different? I certainly haven't; of course a code has information. But information is not necessarily a messaged code; it can be gathered without being sent.
Great! Glad to see we agree that you've made a circular argument by "proving" what you only define by the limits of what you began by inferrring. Wow! This game of chopping up someone's post into bits instead of dealing with it as a whole really works! Thanks, Daniel!
What on earth, sir???!?!? How can you observe that which is neither matter nor energy? Anyway, I guess that answers my question as to whether you're willing to hold your own feet to the fire you demand others test their science by- you can't and/or won't, you've got a double standard and, by (for?) god, you're sticking to it. Science can't be done by inference, unless it's Danielscience when he can't, in fact, observe god creating DNA, but can only infer it.
Ah, I see...you're switching back and forth, as necessary, between your deliberately-narrowed concept of "information," and whatever information can be gathered from something. As here...
You shouldn't be mistaking what you need to be true for a proper question to ask me. No, stars don't send messages; they do, however, have, are defined by, information that can be gathered from observation. Do you not think spectral lines, temperatures, etc., are information? Do they send you messages?
But have no information. So you are, indeed, switching standards for your proof of creation to whatever it needs to be to prove it. How do you test for a god who's inseparable from any and all effects you see? On one hand, you make your test specific and contextual- "information" showing life; and, on the other, eliminate that test when it doesn't work, handwave away your own criteria, and make the whole universe its own test by no longer having any basis for comparison. This is not science.
Again...what on earth, sir?!!?!?!? Didn't you just get through saying there was no information, in your narrow sense of "message," from stars? How, then, can "information" be the compelling case? Can you not keep up with your own argument? It's certainly simplistic enough.As mentioned, INFORMATION (and Functional Sequence/Specified Complexity) are the compelling Factors in the Matter.
You can also stop in here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=304638 and we can discover HIS EXISTENCE by the most successful branch of Physics in the History of Science...Quantum Mechanics. And guess what the compelling factor is for that also???... "Information"!!What a coincidence.
Again with the confusion between what you need and what I'm saying.
That's ok, I understand creationists have problems with any logic outside their own fanfic...turingtest
Mistral, mistral wind...
And DNA is not either one, it's only analogous. Plain and simple, no hairsplits needed.
We agree, splitting semantic hairs to the point they're not even identifiable hairs anymore, in an effort to define something into something else it's not, is a quibbling fallacy. Maybe you should stop doing it then, huh?
annnnoid
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…at the risk of joining the enemy…(how does that go?…the enemy of my enemy is my friend…but that’s just way too melodramatic…I prefer Seinfeld anyway).
…funny this. The degree to which everyone screams that science describes / predicts / explains everything…until the implications are laid on the table. What explains this simple fact (not to mention…what explains how / why human consciousness possesses this capacity in the first place) (…IOW…is E=mc2 merely a coincidence?). Cognitive theory…yech!
Does the universe operate according to rules? It certainly seems to be the case…if for no other reason than that everyone here never stops insisting that this is so.
IOW…the universe does not operate according to energy, or matter, or forces…it operates according to rules. If ‘this’ happens…then ‘that’ will happen. Rules / patterns implicate information / intelligence. Certainly according to SETI…if nothing else.
What is the explicit relationship between the ‘rules’ and the activity of reality?
Nobody actually knows that there is one (apart from our own dirty little hands)…or that there isn’t. But, as ehcks quite helpfully illustrated…everyone certainly behaves as if it’s a forgone conclusion.
…so, intelligent designers then. That it would be beyond the ability of any intelligence we know of is merely an argument from ignorance. When did you (or I) become the metric by which all intelligence is measured? Not to mention…who possess what capacity to adjudicate who (or what) has what capacity for intelligence? One does not have to travel too far in this world to come to the very convincing conclusion that there are some whose capacity to adjudicate intelligence is not just greater, but far greater…than others.
How to define intelligence?...the capacity to accurately understand what is perceived / experienced…including intelligence itself.
Language emerges from god-knows-where god-knows-how. Insisting that it is not ‘intelligently-designed’ is an assumption. If, in fact, this universe is ‘intelligently designed’ (whatever the eff that might mean)…then it might be reasonable to conclude that language is also intelligently designed.
…and you know this how? If there were (or is)(a God), how do you know you would possess the capacity to adjudicate such a thing? Come to think of it…by any reasonable argument, you wouldn’t have a clue. A ‘God’ (presumably) has the capacity to create universes and such (15 billion years old by 15 billion light years across…give or take a few zero’s)…while you arrived certainly no more than a few decades ago, you arguably have no idea what you are, and you will vanish any day (going you-have-no-idea-where).
So by what reasonable argument could you or anyone like you expect to possess the capacity to intelligibly adjudicate something on the scale of a God?
Not yet it isn't. There are innumerable things described analogously that are presumed to have some manner of factual existence. I would say your paradigm is somewhat frayed.
…actually, there is no such thing as an empirical definition for the word ‘information’ (come to think of it…there’s no empirical definition for the word empirical either). Analogy is all we have….which does not mean there is no such thing of course. That would be the equivalent of denying our own existence…since we seem to exist as information. How curious is that. We exist as what our universe seems to exist as. What a coincidence!
…and I guess I’d have to disagree with Daniel on the ‘information’ thing. I think he’s trying to prop up his DNA / life argument (not unreasonably but, as turingtest arduously argued…there are speed-bumps on the meandering road to metaphysical harmony). I’d say the whole shebang is information, with what we call life being a very directed version of it. I find it truly amusing the apoplectic contortions so many undertake in their hopeless attempts to argue that NOTHING guided this whole process….while at the very same time constantly screeching that the whole shebang unconditionally operates according to something whose most salient manifestation we triumphantly refer to as Quantum Mechanics (aka: rules).
Ya can’t have it both ways folks. It either follows rules, or it don’t. If it does, then the only questions are, do the rules exist…and if so…where did they come from.
First question answer: Everything seems to follow the rules so there is certainly some reason to believe such a thing has some kind of reality beyond our own minds. Considering the weirdness that occurs between concepts like ‘consciousness’, ‘informational-substrate, ‘observer-dependent-reality’, ‘non-locality’, ‘mysticism’, ‘you-name-it’…not to mention our capacity to locate, identify, comprehend, and create concepts that describe and predict just about everything to a degree of near mystical complexity, accuracy, and (according to various mathematicians)…beauty….there certainly seems to be more than some reason to believe that rules MUST have some relevance beyond the merely descriptive.
But how to falsify this little tidbit? We could insist that God do some writing on the tablets again and come clean…or some such thing. These days…I suppose divinely authored youtube video’s might be the way to go (somewhat mundane, admittedly...surely God could do something more original!).
There is, of course, hope (apart from the divine revelation thing). In a thousand years or so…when it is determined what specific bio-chemistry is required to create what specific cognitive activity…we will face head-on the paradox of meaning:
Bio-chemistry is described by physics…is described through mathematics. Mathematics is cognition. How then to resolve the function: What specific mathematics creates the specific mathematics that describes the mathematics that creates the descriptive mathematics (…better to drink heavily before attempting that one).
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tsig
a carbon based life-form
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Thou hast sounded the depths of profundity and opened minds to the futility of ever understanding any thing about anything.
Lukraak_Sisser
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I will try to explain again. No quote as I'm working from my phone.
I buy the nucleotides comprising RNA (hence no T but U ).
I randomly string them together into 150 to 200 mers.
The I use a selection method to enrich those that perform a function I want to see. Like self replication.
This new and functional RNA is called a ribozyme.
And it contains both the information on its function , how to fold correctly to perform that function and the code to make more of itself.
In other words all the information creationists claim need design yet it was found trough random assembly.
All the lab does is speed up the process. Where the nucleotides come from is totally irellevant for these experiments as these alone already show that yes dumb monomers can create information without intelligent guidance.
These types of experiments are routine in genetics and have led to scores of new ribozymes as shown in the pubmed literature I linked two times now.
So claiming genetic information needs an intelligent desinger is proven and factually wrong.
Unless of course you can show that the experiments were not random.
I buy the nucleotides comprising RNA (hence no T but U ).
I randomly string them together into 150 to 200 mers.
The I use a selection method to enrich those that perform a function I want to see. Like self replication.
This new and functional RNA is called a ribozyme.
And it contains both the information on its function , how to fold correctly to perform that function and the code to make more of itself.
In other words all the information creationists claim need design yet it was found trough random assembly.
All the lab does is speed up the process. Where the nucleotides come from is totally irellevant for these experiments as these alone already show that yes dumb monomers can create information without intelligent guidance.
These types of experiments are routine in genetics and have led to scores of new ribozymes as shown in the pubmed literature I linked two times now.
So claiming genetic information needs an intelligent desinger is proven and factually wrong.
Unless of course you can show that the experiments were not random.
Prove it.
All you've done so far is assert it. Now go on, actually do some work, maybe even some thinking, and prove it.
I Am The Scum
Philosopher
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How does a consistent set of causes and effects imply intelligence?
turingtest
Mistral, mistral wind...
I wonder if annnnoid was trying to disprove Daniel's thesis? I mean...not only can you gather information from something that's not a message from an intelligent agency, you can also apparently have a message from a (presumably) intelligent agency that doesn't contain a bit of information.
Rules aren't something that have a physical existence, nor need to be decreed or determined by a designer, or controller. They are most likely used only by the observer as a way of making sense of what is observed.
You asked the question, then seemed to choose godditit as the answer, rather than the simple answer I have just given. Why did you make that choice? It's difficult to avoid thinking that you, as with Daniel, have the answer you want at the start of the process rather than the end, and you simply choose an argument which leads to your pre-determined outcome.
Well, if the universe didn't operate according to rules, and did it reliably, that would be a rule. So yeah, it operates according to rules.