Creationist argument about DNA and information

[tsig]

And yet again, Daniel has come and gone with nary a peep toward my question. I feel sad and lonely.

You shouldn't feel too bad he really doesn't answer any posts just picks out some part for ridicule then engages in snide remarks and slurs.

 

[tsig]

Annoid, you whitter on about the Fibonacci sequence, but can you show us how any sort of spiral doesn't include the Fibonacci sequence?

You are seeing a pattern and ascribing it to a creator. The rest of the world sees the most efficient way of crowding seeds into a circle, and notes that an interesting pattern emerges. Parsimony.

Thank you I've been trying to express this.

 

[tsig]

Geez, his response is to yet again trot out the Orgel quote. Does he really think he's doing to sway anyone? Usually I see people on the forum evolve their arguments, no matter what thesis views. He's just stagnant.

He's preaching to the mirror.

 

[Daniel]

Why are you hung up on experiment?

ha ha ha. Thank You for coming right out and saying what we already knew.

Well Sir, because Experiment/TESTING....Hypothesis TESTING: IS SCIENCE !!!!!! That's why I'm 'hung up' on it.

You can make predictions and see if observations match them without experiment.

Well there's a difference between "Predictions" and "Scientific Predictions".

"Scientific Predictions" are the Consequent of The Antecedent --- "Independent Variable" Manipulation. THIS...THEN THAT motif.

"Formalized hypotheses contain two variables. One is "independent" and the other is "dependent." The independent variable is the one you, the "scientist" control and the dependent variable is the one that you observe and/or measure the results.
The ultimate value of a formalized hypothesis is it forces us to think about what results we should look for in an experiment.
Notice there are two parts to a formalized hypothesis: the “if” portion contains the testable proposed relationship and the “then” portion is the prediction of expected results from an experiment. An acceptable hypothesis contains both aspects, not just the prediction portion.
http://www.csub.edu/~ddodenhoff/Bio100/Bio100sp04/formattingahypothesis.htm


"Predictions" without an Antecedent are: Jeanne Dixon/Edgar Cayce/Nostradamus/Carnival TENT motifs.

See the difference?


I Predict the combined score of next years Super Bowl will be less than 150 points!!!

Am I a See'er? Is this Science??


regards

 

[jimbob]

Just because you say it is, it doesn't make it so.

Making testable predictions is a perfectly valid approach.

The flood fails on that - and any creator put the evidence for its falsity in their work for anyone with eyes to see.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Is this science?

LINK

 

[annnnoid]

"I have been trying, for quite a long time now, to communicate some ideas of mine. To me, they are both obvious and deep. However, as I review your responses to my posts, I realize that I have failed, pretty spectacularly, to convey my meaning in a way that you understand."

No doubt it is partly my inability to convey my meaning. But…to say you don’t understand is not accurate. You understand perfectly well…you just avoid the understanding of the understanding.

IOW…you’re biased. And that’s not an insult…it’s just a fact. Exactly the same as Daniel is biased in favor of his creationist paradigm…and thus locates arguments that substantiate it (according to you).

…and I know you are biased because this issue implicates the very bedrock of what it means to be a skeptic / atheist. You cannot even begin to allow anything that even remotely resembles or implicates instantiated intelligence. If you lose this argument, it fundamentally challenges both your objective and your subjective worldview …and you think that ‘they’ have won.

You’re wrong about that too.

The simple fact is…that if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, behaves like a duck, and smells like a duck…

…especially to a group of professionals (aka: physicists) who most of you not only idolize but who have made a career out of the study and application of ‘ducks’….

…and especially when the ‘duck’ in question (laws) has a phenomenology that has at the very least an ever increasing metaphysical equivalence to the ‘duck’ it is derived from and being compared to (nature…which has, as a result of QM, become something called ‘information’)…

With all of this (and there is much much more)…your unequivocal conclusion is that it is NOT a duck!

Provide me with a sane argument why this is not stupid (aka: evidence of bias)!

At the very least…it must be acknowledged that there is a great deal of evidence that implicates ducks!

That is what my argument boils down to. There is evidence that implicates ducks. In fact…ALL the evidence implicates ducks. The only reason we cannot definitively conclude that ducks exist, is cause we simply don’t know (empirically) what a duck is (intelligence, information, consciousness, reality…all big question marks)!

…so what does all that mean? Your bias invariably steers you away from the implications, and probably explains the above as well.

The other issue are these never-ending comments about how I’m making too much out of all this.

To put it simply…if you’re gonna participate in a thread that specifically addresses issues like the phenomenology of information and the fundamental nature of…everything…

…don’t complain if those exact things get discussed!

 

[JeanTate]

No doubt it is partly my inability to convey my meaning. But…to say you don’t understand is not accurate. You understand perfectly well…you just avoid the understanding of the understanding.

IOW…you’re biased. And that’s not an insult…it’s just a fact. Exactly the same as Daniel is biased in favor of his creationist paradigm…and thus locates arguments that substantiate it (according to you).

…and I know you are biased because this issue implicates the very bedrock of what it means to be a skeptic / atheist. If you lose this argument, it fundamentally challenges both your objective and your subjective worldview …and you think that ‘they’ have won.

You’re wrong about that too.

The simple fact is…that if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, behaves like a duck, and smells like a duck…

…especially to a group of professionals (aka: physicists) who most of you not only idolize but who have made a career out of the study and application of ‘ducks’….

…and especially when the ‘duck’ in question (laws) has a phenomenology that has at the very least an ever increasing metaphysical equivalence to the ‘duck’ it is derived from and being compared to (nature…which has, as a result of QM, become something called ‘information’)…

With all of this (and there is much much more)…your unequivocal conclusion is that it is NOT a duck!

Provide me with a sane argument why this is not stupid (aka: evidence of bias)!

At the very least…it must be acknowledged that there is a great deal of evidence that implicates ducks!

That is what my argument boils down to. There is evidence that implicates ducks. In fact…ALL the evidence implicates ducks. The only reason we cannot definitively conclude that ducks exist, is cause we simply don’t know (empirically) what a duck is (intelligence, information, consciousness, reality…all big question marks)!

…so what does all that mean? Your bias invariably steers you away from the implications, and probably explains the above as well.

The other issue are these never-ending comments about how I’m making too much out of all this.

To put it simply…if you’re gonna participate in a thread that specifically addresses issues like the phenomenology of information and the fundamental nature of…everything…

…don’t complain if those exact things get discussed!

Oh well.

At least I tried.

 

[MikeG]

My long experience of these things is that when you start using the word phenomenology, you've run out of argument. This was a great rule of thumb at university.

 

[jimbob]

My long experience of these things is that when you start using the word phenomenology, you've run out of argument. This was a great rule of thumb at university.

True - I also like these posts

If Daniel were an Indian or an ancient Greek, I have no doubt he'd be arguing for one of the two. Annnnoid...I dunno. I read his stuff, and for some reason, all I can think is "party on, Garth!"

ETA:

Very much so- in fact...

My affinity was then more for the bud; nowadays, the strongest thing I indulge in is coffee, though I cling to the Pink Floyd.

A while ago I posted: "Am I the only one here who finds this sort of undergraduate, 3am, pot-fuelled solipsistic, shadows-on-the-walls-of-the-cave intellectual meandering both boring and pointless?" is that what you remember?

 

[JeanTate]

<snip>

Go...

1. Functional DNA/RNA/Proteins NEVER spontaneously form "naturally", outside already existing cells, from Sugars, Bases, Phosphates, and Aminos, respectively.
It's Physically and Chemically IMPOSSIBLE.
That's just the Hardware!

To refute, Please show a Functional 30 mer- RNA or Protein (most are 250 AA or larger) that formed spontaneously "Outside" a Cell/Living Organism, <snip>

(my bold)

The first, and perhaps second, time you posted this, it's possible that you didn't actually read what you posted (perhaps you simple cut 'n pasted?).

However, you've now posted this at least twice since it was pointed out that "Functional DNA/RNA/Proteins NEVER spontaneously form "naturally", outside already existing cells, from Sugars, Bases, Phosphates, and Aminos, respectively." is LOGICALLY impossible (do I have to shout to get your attention?)

Why?

Because of the way you have defined "Functional" (or, just maybe, not noticed that in normal discourse it has a very different definition from the private, idiosyncratic one you have been using).

Thus your 'exercise' cannot be completed; there is no way "to refute" it, other than by pointing out that you have written an assertion that is a logical impossibility.

That you have, once again, repeated this strengthens my conclusion that you are not here to discuss; rather, your posting behavior seems no different than that of a spamtroll.

Over to you ...

 

[Daniel]

Just because you say it is, it doesn't make it so.

I'm not merely 'Saying' it, I'm Illustrating "WHY" it is...BIG difference!

Making testable predictions is a perfectly valid approach.

Just because you say it is, it doesn't make it so.

Is there a difference between "Scientific Predictions" and Jeanne Dixon (et al) "Predictions"? If so, can you differentiate for us...?

The flood fails on that - and any creator put the evidence for its falsity in their work for anyone with eyes to see.

Well, Just because you say it is, it doesn't make it so.

regards

 

[MikeG]

........
Lastly, I have a question or three for you, if I may: do you have any insight into why Danielscience seems so internally inconsistent? Do you think there's a recognition - certainly open admission is not on the cards - by proponents of Danielscience that much, perhaps even most, of the quote mining is intellectually dishonest? Willfully deceitful? Given the apparent source of Daniel's ethical and moral values, how to understand the arrogance (pride) etc?

I think that Danielscience has a Word document or somesuch, with a whole series of quotes without any context. Whenever a certain key word is used in an argument against him, he looks up the word and drops in the quote, utterly unaware of the context or the meaning. Similarly, when he wants to back up one of his own arguments, he visits the stock of mined quotes, and drops it in regardless of it's content, just so long as it includes a particular phrase or key word. The reason that there is no internal consistency is that he isn't aiming for a water-tight argument, nor any attempt to defeat the evil ISFers, he is simply trying to impress another audience elsewhere.

If there is any strategy, it is simply to gish gallop through the discussion, and to never get involved in any discussion about the evidence for his alternative theory.....the one cooked up by illiterate shepherds around bronze-age campfires.

 

[marplots]

Oy Vey^{1000000000......} Marlpots this isn't a personal indictment, everyone is doing it.

This is so mind numbingly Stupefying, it's difficult to put into words.

That's OK, I'm immune to insult anyhow. Either a criticism is true and I should adopt it, or it's false, and I should ignore it. No umbrage either way.

Over 1700 posts and nobody can get past The Narrative and are Not Dealing with The Argument!!!!

Ready...

Where'd you get the PLANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where'd you get LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are the answers:
1) Where'd you get the PLANT? From other plants.
2) Where'd you get LIFE? From other life.

Perhaps we have reached some small perch of agreement?

That wise cat is entangled in a Fallacy ...

The Fallacy of Irrelevant Thesis - arguing a point that's irrelevant to the subject at hand.

Your implication above is tantamount to...

You're a reporter and you asked a sole survivor of a plane crash HOW/WHY is it that he was able to survive, and he answered: "Because, if I hadn't survived, you wouldn't have been able to ask me the question".

This is a Fallacy, a Type of Red Herring...What he said is very true; however, he didn't answer the question: HOW/Why he survived?? ....not How/Why he is able to answer the question.

Why is it 'No Surprise' the Cat found meaning around him. Just coincidence?

Why/HOW do we come 'Pre-Matched'? Coincidence? What Law of Physics governs this 'Pre-Matching'?

We can't know. Coincidence is a statement of probability and that relies on having a sample set we can draw from. If there is ever only one plane crash, we can't say how likely it is that someone survives. So too, we only have one earth to examine and one "chain of life" to inspect. We should not say, merely because it appears amazing to us, that life is unlikely or a grand coincidence. There's no reasonable way to put a number on it.

You can assert that the universe (or at least our local bit) was created so that we might arise in it, or you can assert that we are the natural result of the universe as it evolved, unintelligently. But whichever you assert, we can still agree that evolution is operating now, all around us. This is where much of the befuddlement arises. We have a good explanation for some observations and you insist that if the explanation isn't as complete as you'd like, it can be no explanation at all. It confuses me why someone would adopt this position instead of the weaker claim that evolution has limits and things it does not explain very well.

Even if I were to grant the idea that DNA contains information (which I do not) and even if I accepted that only an intelligent being could create such a thing, I am still confronted with how the system works right now and can theorize to my heart's content about that bit without ever visiting the origins problem.

 

[RussDill]

BTW, someone might want to point out to Daniel (I can't as I'm presumably on ignore) that his watchmaker argument he is so fond of with the picture of the sand castle, the menu, and what not over and over again is completely incompatible with danielscience.

He's asking that we look at an object that we did not see form, and make conclusions about it's origins. But somehow we can't draw conclusions about a mineral that contains a mixture of lead and uranium that does not naturally form with lead content.

 

[annnnoid]

Oh well.

At least I tried.

Ok then…we’ll start at the beginning:

All the physicists say…’all of reality can be described and predicted by the laws of physics.’

All the engineers say…’ok, we’ll take your word for it.’

Do you see any evidence anywhere anyhow that the engineers should not be trusting the physicists?

IOW…do the literally trillions of creations generated by engineers confirm that the laws of physics do, in fact, work (right down to atomic scales)?

IOW…it is reasonable to conclude that the laws of physics accurately represent the ‘laws of nature’?

 

[hecd2]

Ok then…we’ll start at the beginning:

All the physicists say…’all of reality can be described and predicted by the laws of physics.’

All the engineers say…’ok, we’ll take your word for it.’

Do you see any evidence anywhere anyhow that the engineers should not be trusting the physicists?

IOW…do the literally trillions of creations generated by engineers confirm that the laws of physics do, in fact, work (right down to atomic scales)?

IOW…it is reasonable to conclude that the laws of physics accurately represent the ‘laws of nature’?

You fall at the first hurdle. I am a physicist and I do not claim that "all of reality can be described and predicted by the laws of physics" if by the laws of physics you mean those theories and laws that we have formulated as of today.

 

[marplots]

(much snipped)

All the physicists say…’all of reality can be described and predicted by the laws of physics.’

I don't think they say this. Better: Physicists label robust, well demonstrated descriptions of reality "laws" and part of the demonstration (that the description is accurate) is making correct predictions.

Where predictions based on laws fail, it's the laws that lose, not reality.

The ideal gas law loses out to any residual property (physics)^WP, an inconvenient mismatch with actual gasses. It's still a useful description, but it isn't bending reality to its will.

 

[AdamSK]

I think it would be more accurate to have the physicists say, "the parts of reality that you are regularly interacting with are accurately described and predicted by these rules and models of physics."
With that modification, the rest actually does follow smoothly. Also note there's a bit of a feedback loop - when engineers run into something that doesn't match the models, physicists (and often also engineers, really) uncover new phenomena and tweak the models.

 

[Daniel]

Here are the answers:

1) Where'd you get the PLANT? From other plants.
2) Where'd you get LIFE? From other life.

Perhaps we have reached some small perch of agreement?

Exactly my point! If you wish, you can start a New Thread because this Begging The Question Fallacy is not the Topic Here.

Maybe if I state the Positions again...


Atheists/Materialists/Realists Position: Nature/Natural Law CAN CREATE Life from Non-Living Matter.

Christians/ID Position: Nature/Natural CAN NOT create Life from Non-Living Matter.


There are only 2 Choices: Nature (Unguided) or GOD/Intelligent Design (Guided) this is a True Dichotomy.
Any and all conjurings will fall UNDER one of these Two Categories, Hard Stop!

Now, I didn't ask for anyone here to show Life from Non-Life (because this is a tear jerkin belly laugher, SEE: Law of Biogenesis). All I've been asking for pages and pages is: TO SUPPORT YOUR BELIEF SYSTEM, show "ONE" Functional Molecule DNA/RNA/Protein (That Which LIFE is made of) spontaneously, "naturally", outside already existing cells, from Sugars, Bases, Phosphates, and Aminos, respectively.

THEN...

How Did Stupid Atoms Write Their Own Software....? In other words, show how Ink/Paper/Glue Molecules can Author Technical Instruction Manuals/Blueprints...?

That's it. SHOW?? If you can't...then you believe in Fairytales, Hard Stop!

Even if I were to grant the idea that DNA contains information (which I do not)...

Then you are a Science Denier!!! ...

"DNA has two types of digital information — the genes that encode proteins, which are the molecular machines of life, and the gene regulatory networks that specify the behaviour of the genes."
Hood, L., Galas, D.,: The Digital Code of DNA: Nature 421, 444-448 (23 January 2003) | doi :10.1038/nature01410

“DNA is not a special life-giving molecule, but a genetic databank that transmits its information using a mathematical code. Most of the workings of the cell are best described, not in terms of material stuff — hardware — but as INFORMATION, or SOFTWARE. Trying to make life by mixing chemicals in a test tube is like soldering switches and wires in an attempt to produce Windows 98. It won’t work because it addresses the problem at the wrong conceptual level.” {Emphasis Mine}
Paul Davies PhD Physics http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2002/dec/11/highereducation.uk

"Over the next sixty minutes I explained how life ultimately consists of DNA-driven biological machines. All living cells run on DNA SOFTWARE, which directs hundreds to thousands of PROTEIN ROBOTS. We have been digitizing life for decades, since we first figured out how to read the SOFTWARE of life by sequencing DNA. Now we can go in the other direction by starting with computerized digital code, designing a new form of life, chemically synthesizing its DNA, and then booting it up to produce the actual organism." {Emphasis Mine}
Craig Venter PhD Geneticist (NIH, Celera Genomics)
http://www.sciencefriday.com/blogs/10/24/2013/dna-the-software-of-life.html

"The genetic code performs a mapping between the sequences of the four nucleotides in mRNA to the sequences of the 20 amino acids in protein. It is highly relevant to the origin of life that the genetic code is constructed to confront and solve the problems of communication and recording by the same principles found both in the genetic information system and in modern computer and communication codes."
Yockey, HP; Origin of life on earth and Shannon's theory of communication. In open problems of computational molecular biology. Computers and Chemistry; 24(1):105-123, Jan 2000

We should not say, merely because it appears amazing to us, that life is unlikely or a grand coincidence. There's no reasonable way to put a number on it.

You continue to forget your position: Nature/Natural Law is all that there is; Ergo...Provide the Natural Law that Governs what you claimed, you said: "You come pre-matched, constructed of the same stuff with the same general recipe. Get me some tuna."

If you can't, then your Words/Claims are EMPTY, without SUPPORT....you believe in Fairytales, Hard Stop!


regards