Perpetual Student
Illuminator
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Actually, not "total" solipsism -- the universe will consist of simply him and Jesus.
Creationist argument about DNA and information
- Thread starter barehl
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Actually, not "total" solipsism -- the universe will consist of simply him and Jesus.
turingtest
Mistral, mistral wind...
Well, since the Jesus he has in mind is pretty much a figment of it...
AFAICT, even when Daniel does respond to a post, it's most often to twist a point he can't answer into something he can superficially pretend to; that's what makes a good creationist. He may not actually have anyone on a formal ignore list; conceptually, everyone is on it.
Please cite evidence that all 20 were required for the first self-replicating objects on the planet. When you've done that, we'll consider looking into your spurious request.
RussDill
Philosopher
This is in direct conflict with your previous definition of information. You said that a hurricane does not contain information.
Minoosh
Penultimate Amazing
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I'm following this thread only very loosely now - the typographical assaults and walls o' text and epistemological futility got to be too much for me. There's a limit to what can be described in words, in my opinion. I am kind of interested in the grand questions posed here but this has gotten very repetitive.
It has prompted me to research prion disease, because this seems to be something between mineral crystal formation and RNA/DNA - a (simpler?) self-replicating organic molecule. Again I slam hard against my limitations in the field of biochemistry. In layman's terms I can grasp the concept of a "misfolded" protein generating a chain reaction and gumming up neural networks. Is this considered "reproduction"? Can a non-living entity adapt to its "habitat?" I mean, even more non-living than viruses which do contain DNA?
As far as I can tell the purpose of reproduction is reproduction. Which is interesting. Why life? How life? I don't know. But I have no doubt that well before there was man, other creatures inhabited an Earth where the sun appeared to rise and set each day; where the tilt of Earth's axis contributed to seasonal changes in climate; where the moon and Earth were linked in a mutual attraction that caused tides to ebb and flow in a consistent pattern. I'm picking 1 million years for my hypothetical observations because it's far enough back to predate human intellect yet recent enough to be just the other day, geologically speaking.
Thus I have departed far from Daniel's world view, since he believes Earth was created a few thousand years ago and that dinosaurs died in the Genesis flood. But annnnoid, I'm just not sure. He/she claims we have no idea what a human being is, which I dispute. But my larger question is, does annnnoid believe that the tides didn't go in and out until human beings were around to observe the process? Or, maybe, some other "conscious" being? Did the "laws of physics" have to be legislated, or did gravity "obey" an inverse-square relationship all on its own, before there was any life at all?
Someone a couple of pages back asked annnnoid about this statement:
Someone - Mike G.? - asked for an example. I don't mean to be sloppy or inexact here; I just find my eyes glazing over as I try to find individual posts. So maybe an example has been given. But ... I can't find it. So what are the "other legitimate ways of achieving, experiencing, and exploring knowledge" besides science? Studying art history? Composing symphonies? Having amazing sex? I don't have a clue what annnnoid means here.
Oh, well. More than I meant to type, but I did it and I don't think I'll make the thread any more befuddling than it already is.
It has prompted me to research prion disease, because this seems to be something between mineral crystal formation and RNA/DNA - a (simpler?) self-replicating organic molecule. Again I slam hard against my limitations in the field of biochemistry. In layman's terms I can grasp the concept of a "misfolded" protein generating a chain reaction and gumming up neural networks. Is this considered "reproduction"? Can a non-living entity adapt to its "habitat?" I mean, even more non-living than viruses which do contain DNA?
As far as I can tell the purpose of reproduction is reproduction. Which is interesting. Why life? How life? I don't know. But I have no doubt that well before there was man, other creatures inhabited an Earth where the sun appeared to rise and set each day; where the tilt of Earth's axis contributed to seasonal changes in climate; where the moon and Earth were linked in a mutual attraction that caused tides to ebb and flow in a consistent pattern. I'm picking 1 million years for my hypothetical observations because it's far enough back to predate human intellect yet recent enough to be just the other day, geologically speaking.
Thus I have departed far from Daniel's world view, since he believes Earth was created a few thousand years ago and that dinosaurs died in the Genesis flood. But annnnoid, I'm just not sure. He/she claims we have no idea what a human being is, which I dispute. But my larger question is, does annnnoid believe that the tides didn't go in and out until human beings were around to observe the process? Or, maybe, some other "conscious" being? Did the "laws of physics" have to be legislated, or did gravity "obey" an inverse-square relationship all on its own, before there was any life at all?
Someone a couple of pages back asked annnnoid about this statement:
Someone - Mike G.? - asked for an example. I don't mean to be sloppy or inexact here; I just find my eyes glazing over as I try to find individual posts. So maybe an example has been given. But ... I can't find it. So what are the "other legitimate ways of achieving, experiencing, and exploring knowledge" besides science? Studying art history? Composing symphonies? Having amazing sex? I don't have a clue what annnnoid means here.
Oh, well. More than I meant to type, but I did it and I don't think I'll make the thread any more befuddling than it already is.
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Begging The Question Fallacy: "Self Replicating Objects". Show evidence of one...?
If you can't, it's also a Textbook Argument from Ignorance (Fallacy)...
Argument/Appeal to Ignorance (Fallacy)--- is an argument for or against a proposition on the basis of a lack of evidence against or for it. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/ignorant.html
"The 20 amino acids that are found within proteins convey a vast array of chemical versatility. The precise amino acid content, and the sequence of those amino acids, of a specific protein, is determined by the sequence of the bases in the gene that encodes that protein. The chemical properties of the amino acids of proteins determine the biological activity of the protein. Proteins not only catalyze all (or most) of the reactions in living cells, they control virtually all cellular process."
http://www.biology.arizona.edu/biochemistry/problem_sets/aa/aa.html
Then ahhh, the Next Elephant in the Room (from Citation Above) which VALIDATES my point IN TOTO
..."The precise amino acid content, and the sequence of those amino acids, of a specific protein, is determined by the sequence of the bases in the gene that encodes that protein."
That means, for a "Functional" Protein to Exist...you need the 'Necessary Condition' (Antecedent): GENES (DNA), where'd you get DNA ??
Round and Round we go
How do you know it's 'spurious' before you've looked into it??
You heard of Preconceived Bias before??
Just keep a 'Hammerin away @ the C4 Fire'.
regards
1. Scientifically Validate i.e., Post the Formal Scientific Hypothesis and Experiment that Validates that the Earth/Universe are older than a few thousand years so as to SUPPORT your position...?
Highlight the Independent Variable used in the TEST....?
2. I do not 'believe' ALL the Dinosaurs died in The Flood; (SEE: Book of JOB, Behemoth and Leviathan)
Don't know what annnnoid's position is but since I'm here
, stop over on the QM Thread... here's a Primer:According to the Schrodinger Equation THEN...Validated Repeatedly via thousands of "EXPERIMENTS" without Exception for the past 100 years with the most successful branch of Physics in the History of "Actual" Science, Quantum Mechanics... :
Independent of Observation/Measurement... particles have no defined properties or location. They exist in a state of a Wave Function which is a series of Potentialities rather than actual objects. That is, "Matter" doesn't exist as a Wave of Energy prior to observation but as a Wave of Potentialities.
So the short answer to your question is a resounding: YEP, can't have "Matter" without "which-path INFORMATION" Existing. (It wasn't 'humans', In The Beginning was "The WORD"---"Information"---The LOGOS----and "The Word" was with GOD and "The Word" was GOD).
You can't have "Information" existing without it's 'Necessary Condition' (Antecedent)....Intelligent Agency
The Distinguished British Astrophysicist Martin Rees spoke to the Paradox...
"In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers turned up several billion years later. The universe exists because we are aware of it."
Caveat: The 'Paradox' is only for Materialists/Realists, Atheists.
ps. Note the Dovetail with " INFORMATION " here in DNA...the sine qua non of LIFE AND the sine qua non of... REALITY.
regards
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Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
Go start a young earth thread rather than derail this one. Let's examine the two ideas by pragmatic predictive values through field and lab observations. I dare you.
Minoosh
Penultimate Amazing
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Daniel, I mean no disrespect, but I find your jeering, sneering and gloating not helpful for communication or dialogue. You must be aware that not only atheists but a great many Christians do not share your beliefs regarding creationism, the age of the earth, etc. The following post is something I started before I saw your most recent post, and I'd like to finish this thought, because I feel it's important.
I love this. It's beautiful writing. But I can't parse it. What does it mean? One interpretation could be:
Perfect, shining information was with God and was God and this perfect pattern knitted itself into living meat, the better to share and redeem the suffering of the living meat it had created.
This may sound irreverent but I don't mean it that way. It's just an example of the limits of language, in my opinion. The Word was God and the Word was with God? There is paradox here, something out of my grasp ... how are both of these things true? Was the word "word" capitalized in the original New Testament Greek? And ... whoa ... quick search indicates that the entire New Testament was written in capital letters; there was no punctuation and no spaces between words. So, why did translators choose to capitalize what they did?
Punctuation in Ancient Greek Texts, Part 1
http://greek-language.com/grklinguist/?p=657
The author is a believer and, obviously, a scholar. My ears go up at the phrase "we must look for clues." Take a given passage, start playing with the punctuation ... and meanings can easily change. I agree with the 17th-century scribe who capitalized the word "word": It gives the passage more power; it emphasizes "logos" (λόγος)
In the beginning was the λόγος ...
http://www.bible-researcher.com/logos.html
Even believers, especially believers can find a ton of stuff to learn from people who share aspects of their faith, but who may differ from them on other points, such as the age of the Earth. You know another Bible quote I love?
What did "reason" mean in this context? I don't read ancient Hebrew, but as with the NT, there will be nuances of translation I know nothing about. However it is my opinion that learning can only add; it will never take away.
Here's another avenue to explore: a discussion of figurative speech, and whether the bible always signals when it is using figurative speech.
I'm open to exploration, but you have not convinced me of anything.
I love this. It's beautiful writing. But I can't parse it. What does it mean? One interpretation could be:
Perfect, shining information was with God and was God and this perfect pattern knitted itself into living meat, the better to share and redeem the suffering of the living meat it had created.
This may sound irreverent but I don't mean it that way. It's just an example of the limits of language, in my opinion. The Word was God and the Word was with God? There is paradox here, something out of my grasp ... how are both of these things true? Was the word "word" capitalized in the original New Testament Greek? And ... whoa ... quick search indicates that the entire New Testament was written in capital letters; there was no punctuation and no spaces between words. So, why did translators choose to capitalize what they did?
Punctuation in Ancient Greek Texts, Part 1
http://greek-language.com/grklinguist/?p=657
The author is a believer and, obviously, a scholar. My ears go up at the phrase "we must look for clues." Take a given passage, start playing with the punctuation ... and meanings can easily change. I agree with the 17th-century scribe who capitalized the word "word": It gives the passage more power; it emphasizes "logos" (λόγος)
In the beginning was the λόγος ...
http://www.bible-researcher.com/logos.html
Even believers, especially believers can find a ton of stuff to learn from people who share aspects of their faith, but who may differ from them on other points, such as the age of the Earth. You know another Bible quote I love?
What did "reason" mean in this context? I don't read ancient Hebrew, but as with the NT, there will be nuances of translation I know nothing about. However it is my opinion that learning can only add; it will never take away.
Here's another avenue to explore: a discussion of figurative speech, and whether the bible always signals when it is using figurative speech.
I'm open to exploration, but you have not convinced me of anything.
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Minoosh
Penultimate Amazing
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Back at ya. Please post the scientific hypothesis and experiment that validates that the Earth is a few thousand years old.
Don't know what annnnoid's position is but since I'm here
According to the Schrodinger Equation THEN...Validated Repeatedly via thousands of "EXPERIMENTS" without Exception for the past 100 years with the most successful branch of Physics in the History of "Actual" Science, Quantum Mechanics... :
There's no point in keeping your entire text here; you have repeated yourself many times. You will find our signals crossed in the mail. I wrote the bit about John before I knew you had brought up John. Don't shout at me, please.
If you understand the math that is roughly translated into English as "wave function," then you are ahead of me. Either way, there are plenty of people who do understand the math who don't agree with you about the age of the Earth/universe.
OK. That does nothing to reinforce your belief in the age of the Earth. And I repeat, because I think it's important: I started the post on the gospel of John before I read your post. The words of this ancient mystic are powerful and they may point to some fundamental aspect of reality. But that doesn't mean the Earth is 6,000 years old.
abaddon
Penultimate Amazing
I presume you are. I know I am. But why don't we choose, say, blue-green algae, which was the dominant life-form on the planet for 2 billion years.
There, now that wasn't difficult, was it. No fallacy involved.
So your strawman is generated out of ignorance of the position of "every atheist on the planet"? That does not make your argument any better.
You are not thinking this through: You are the one who assumes that your God is doing everything that science cannot explain. Your God who is omnipotent (among other things), follows no laws whatsoever. That is magic. The scientific position works parsimoniously; it does not assume supernatural beings solve every problem, and it works with what can be observed. If nature does not follow the know laws of physics, science generates new laws that model nature more closely. It is not science that violates the laws, but nature, and we call it stuff we do not know about.
This is easy: it is created by humans. No law violating stuff is included. If you had picked a piece of DNA, I would again have gone with the most parsimonious answer: nature, and again there are no known physical laws that are violated. If you think there are, you should point out exactly which one, It is not enough that you or some authority cannot imagine how it was created.
I do not play your word games, and I do no care if the abiogenesis hypotheses are hypotheses according to Danielscience. The important point is that they are possible pathways on how life could have come to be, and no known physical laws are broken by the process.
No. Sounds like a hypothesis for me. One that assumes that life is something special outside the known laws of physics that can only be created by more life. At first glance it seems that it is in deep trouble explaining how that could happen before there was life on Earth, and on second thoughts it is probably an idea that creationists have come up with in order to turn their God-of-the-gaps into a physical law.
Your bad analogy is just another strawman.
Another strawman, and even particularly well thought through.
Not a strawman, but your sneer indicates that you think it is wrong because you cannot imagine it is right.
So, I conclude that your arguments are weak, and you reply not by bringing strong arguments, but by bringing strawmen, and incredulity! There are not even scraps left in your barrel?
No, but I am saying that you have no argument against "nature wickering together Hyper Nano-Tech Machines and Robots" except incredulity. And do not start on that still-born argument that because the words "machines" and "robots" are used, we are talking about something that can only be constructed by an intelligence. Even if you can find a quote where Venter says this (which I do not think you can), it would be an argument from authority, not a proof.Are you saying Dr. Leroy Hood and Dr. Craig Venter are speaking from Ignornace and a lack of evidence?? (lol)
Three strawmen in the post I reply to, would that not be support?
Oh, you are clever! How about not characterizing your opposition with strawmen then?
Thanks. You expressed it better than I could ever have done.
And Danielscience's answer will be half a page of irrelevant quote mining with little connection to the question, a repeat of "write down the science of evolution", and a shed-load of straw men, all tied together with poorly punctuated sneering and a surfeit of utterly unnecessary capital letters.
Would a cell qualify?
It is also when lack of knowledge leads one to dismiss a statement. You do it all the time. Or perhaps your claim that the 20 amino acids found in proteins can only be produced by proteins should rather be characterized as the fallacy of incredulity?
What does this irrelevant quote validate? Nobody has claimed that proteins are not significant part of working cells."The 20 amino acids that are found within proteins convey a vast array of chemical versatility. The precise amino acid content, and the sequence of those amino acids, of a specific protein, is determined by the sequence of the bases in the gene that encodes that protein. The chemical properties of the amino acids of proteins determine the biological activity of the protein. Proteins not only catalyze all (or most) of the reactions in living cells, they control virtually all cellular process."
http://www.biology.arizona.edu/biochemistry/problem_sets/aa/aa.html
Then ahhh, the Next Elephant in the Room (from Citation Above) which VALIDATES my point IN TOTO
False conclusion. It does not mean that for a functional protein to exist, you need DNA. Amino acids can be created in other ways than through proteins, and proteins can be created in ways that do not involve DNA. That is what abiogenesis hypotheses have to work with. If you think it is not possible, name the law of physics that prevents it."The precise amino acid content, and the sequence of those amino acids, of a specific protein, is determined by the sequence of the bases in the gene that encodes that protein."
That means, for a "Functional" Protein to Exist...you need the 'Necessary Condition' (Antecedent): GENES (DNA), where'd you get DNA ??
Round and Round we go
And before you start, please note that nobody claims that cells arose in their finished form from start. Just like eyes or all the other creationist examples of "irreducible complexity" did not start in their present form.
Cosmic Yak
Philosopher
Why would you use an analogy in lieu of the ACTUAL 2 Questions
Because you didn't understand the actual questions.
rotflol. So we're discussing "Nature" vs "Intelligent Design"...
Errr, are you saying manmade things aren't Intelligently Designed?
You seem prone to frequent outbursts of laughter, interspersed with occasional floor-rolling episodes. I trust those around you are by now accustomed to this rather eccentric behaviour....
Once you get your breath back, you can think again about the gaping flaw in your argument. You are using manmade objects to show that non-manmade objects are intelligently designed. The assumption is in the question:
"Who built it?" implies you already know it was built. To prove your point, you need to use a natural object, and then prove it shows evidence of having been built, rather than formed.
See above.
So I can't use examples of Intelligent Design for my Argument in support of Intelligent Design ??
Wow.
Such as my "ignorance", for which you have yet to provide examples.
I asked you: "Well go ahead, who/what Built (CREATED) the rock....?" ...
i.e., Where'd you get 'MATTER', Naturally.....? Somewhat deeper than your "igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks" LINK.
You have rather naughtily redefined the parameters of your question after it was asked and answered.
Moreover, I have no intention of playing a game of infinite regress with you. Scientific enquiry has established the history of the formation of matter going back to the Big Bang. I suggest you acquaint yourself with it, thus saving both of us unnecessary time and effort by answering all these, and future questions on this, in one easy step.
Already did.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11181673&postcount=1167
Not confused at all, I'm afraid. Looks quite clear-cut to me.
If I breathe faster, will that get me closer to Jesus?
At, say, 20 breaths per minute, what is the ETA for your creator?
Meanwhile, from this week's Science magazine, about artificial genome creation.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6280/aad6253
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6280/aad6253
I'm pretty sure Daniel has posted something like this before, either in this thread or the other, but for some reason I didn't catch/grasp it before.
This is from the same ISF member who "DEMOLISHED" General Relativity (GR) by saying that "time cannot bend" (I'm paraphrasing). Never mind how well GR has been tested, nor how well it has been shown to be consistent with all relevant experimental and observational results.
Yet here it seems clear that, in Danielscience, QM is taken as well-established, never mind that it incorporates concepts that make "the bending of time" look tame.
Presumably, in Danielscience, Arguments from Incredulity can be quite acceptable, but they must be applied selectively.
It's also curious to see that Danielscience apparently incorporates "a Wave Function which is a series of Potentialities". Why curious? Because I think I read that Danielscience utterly rejects any form of mathematics more advanced than primary school arithmetic (and perhaps some junior high algebra).
In any case, whatever it is that has a cursory appearance of resembling QM, in Danielscience, it is utterly incompatible with the QM of Dirac, Heisenberg, et al. As Daniel's mined quote proves.
Yet again, Daniel mines a quote. As has already been pointed out - more than once I think - the full context shows Rees saying something very different ...
That's from a different post.
I don't think Daniel is claiming to understand that math; rather, he is promoting Danielscience. There is no evidence - of the objective, independently verifiable kind - that Danielscience uses/incorporates math at all.
<snip>
Don't know what annnnoid's position is but since I'm hereMinoosh said:
According to the Schrodinger Equation THEN...Validated Repeatedly via thousands of "EXPERIMENTS" without Exception for the past 100 years with the most successful branch of Physics in the History of "Actual" Science, Quantum Mechanics... :
Independent of Observation/Measurement... particles have no defined properties or location. They exist in a state of a Wave Function which is a series of Potentialities rather than actual objects. That is, "Matter" doesn't exist as a Wave of Energy prior to observation but as a Wave of Potentialities.
So the short answer to your question is a resounding: YEP, can't have "Matter" without "which-path INFORMATION" Existing. (It wasn't 'humans', In The Beginning was "The WORD"---"Information"---The LOGOS----and "The Word" was with GOD and "The Word" was GOD).
You can't have "Information" existing without it's 'Necessary Condition' (Antecedent)....Intelligent Agency
This is from the same ISF member who "DEMOLISHED" General Relativity (GR) by saying that "time cannot bend" (I'm paraphrasing). Never mind how well GR has been tested, nor how well it has been shown to be consistent with all relevant experimental and observational results.
Yet here it seems clear that, in Danielscience, QM is taken as well-established, never mind that it incorporates concepts that make "the bending of time" look tame.
Presumably, in Danielscience, Arguments from Incredulity can be quite acceptable, but they must be applied selectively.
It's also curious to see that Danielscience apparently incorporates "a Wave Function which is a series of Potentialities". Why curious? Because I think I read that Danielscience utterly rejects any form of mathematics more advanced than primary school arithmetic (and perhaps some junior high algebra).
In any case, whatever it is that has a cursory appearance of resembling QM, in Danielscience, it is utterly incompatible with the QM of Dirac, Heisenberg, et al. As Daniel's mined quote proves.
Yet again, Daniel mines a quote. As has already been pointed out - more than once I think - the full context shows Rees saying something very different ...
Minoosh said:
That's from a different post.
I don't think Daniel is claiming to understand that math; rather, he is promoting Danielscience. There is no evidence - of the objective, independently verifiable kind - that Danielscience uses/incorporates math at all.
You're very welcome, steenkh.
@MikeG: that "half a page of irrelevant quote mining with little connection to the question, a repeat of "write down the science of evolution", and a shed-load of straw men, all tied together with poorly punctuated sneering and a surfeit of utterly unnecessary capital letters" IS what Danielscience "is"!
Danielscience does not incorporate mathematics (what, you thought Daniel might respond with some equations?), computer science (what, you thought Daniel might respond with some pseudo code?), formal logic (what ... you get the idea), ... nor consistency.
In fact, I think you may need to revise your Venn diagram ... the intersection set is, I submit, the null set ... the only overlap is ordinary English words, but - as has been conclusively shown here in this thread and the other - in Danielscience even those words have meanings which are rarely found in English, let alone science.