Mechanism behind intelligent design uncovered?

Dr Adequate said:
Their codename for speciation is "macro-evolution". They can call it what they like, but if she goes on to infer that the underlying mechanism must be "macro-mutation", she's been suckered by her own nonsense. Thanks.
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I predict that hammy will come waltzing into this thread any minute, asserting that no one can decide what speciation is anyway, ergo, remain in ignorance. :D
 
Then from a single focal point of light the physical world came into existence ...
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For some reason, it always bothers me when a scientist talks about the 'world' coming into existence at the big bang.

...but then again...she is a babe....OK I believe her.
 
A further email:
Hi. Thank you for your response. You may have guessed that I'm not a regular reader --- I came across your article on a forum devoted to the wondeful, the weird, and the just plain whacko. Your anonymous professor fell into the latter category. I have posted a link to your follow-up article on the same forums:

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59332

--- which may to some extent vindicate your honesty and intelligence.

One part of your second article was clearly disingenous. In the first article, you have not "asked questions" about evolution. You have stated falsehoods about evolution. I have pointed this out to you, and you have not directed me to any article where you make good your foolish blunder concerning "macro-mutation".

Do you wish your falsehoods to stand?

Would you actually like to ask questions about evolution, rather than making ill-informed statements? I warn you, if you wish to ask questions, I can answer them.

Dr A.
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stamenflicker said:
Is there something wrong with the idea of Quantum Biology? Just curious.
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How will I know that until you tell me what "quantum biology" is, and how it relates to this subject?

But this particular thing might be a hoax or it might be lunacy, but it isn't science. How many people could have told the author that neutrons are neutral and protons are positively charged and that like charges repel? --- that electromagnetism alone would force the nucleus apart?

How many people? Everyone who can remember their science lessons in school from their teenage years.

The law that like charges repel is quite a few centuries old.
 
Dr Adequate said:
Still, this is exactly the level of scientific knowledge I would expect from someone who descibes the theory of evolution as "bogus". [/B]
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Bogus and a breakthrough in the same post.
 
Dr. A,

How will I know that until you tell me what "quantum biology" is, and how it relates to this subject?
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http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/quantum_biology/

Well, you guys are the scientists. I am just asking if there is any reason to exclude light as starting point for life, or that biochemical reactions shouldn't occupy quantum space:

Profesor Anton Zeillinger's group in Vienna have recently demonstrated that the fullerene molecule, composed of 60 carbon atoms (the famous ‘buckyball’), can pass through two slits simultaneously. Few physicists doubt that as the technology advances, bigger and more complex systems will be shown to inhabit the quantum world. Fullerene molecules are spheres with a diameter similar to that of the DNA double helix. If fullerene can enter the quantum multiverse then DNA may do the same.
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from http://www.surrey.ac.uk/qe/quantumevolution.htm

It seems at least to me that there are a few implications to consider if this is proven to be true; however I'm not the one to name what they are.

Or the more scientific mathematical hypothesis:

http://www.surrey.ac.uk/qe/equations.htm

Flick
 
stamenflicker said:
Well, you guys are the scientists. I am just asking if there is any reason to exclude light as starting point for life, or that biochemical reactions shouldn't occupy quantum space.
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(1) "Light as a starting point for life"? But what does that mean?

I've given my opinions: the Big Bang, fine, evolution, fine, I know quite a bit about them. The "starting point for life"? --- I am as ignorant on that subject as the babe unborn. I can say nothing sensible about abiogenesis except maybe defining it.

(2) As for "biochemical reactions occupying quantum space". Of course they do, if I've caught your drift. The anonymous professor wanted electromagnetism to account for nuclear reactions, which it doesn't. On the other hand, quantum electrodynamics really does explain chemical reactions. It really does (but see my note on the germ theory of disease) "explain" mutations in DNA. In the end, chemistry, and so biochemistry, follows from the study of quantum electrodynamics --- that is, from the study of electrons and photons (light).

But, as I pointed out, a mutation brought about by such effects is a mutation, and therefore subject to natural selection (if you read my "Darwin Or Bust" thread again, I explain this point very clearly). This is in fact how real scientists think that most mutations are caused: by chemical events, which are necessarily events between electrons mediated by photons, accounted for by quantum theory. (And not by special relativity as our "professor" believes).

Of course all chemistry works according to quantum theory, because this explains how chemistry works. But where do we bring Intelligent Design into this?
 
In the Bible, we are told that God created the universe out of nothing by using light. This is confirmed by modern cosmologists
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Oh No, one religious myth happens to coincide with a modern physical theory. Nope, that have not happened before, no.

If I had a dollar every time I heard that, I could buy me a beer. Usually it’s the Buddhist and Hindus that claim this correspondence to modern physics.
 
stamenflicker said:
Well, you guys are the scientists. I am just asking if there is any reason to exclude light as starting point for life, or that biochemical reactions shouldn't occupy quantum space:
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I'm not sure if I understand what you are saying. Are you saying the rather trivial

A)
i) Quantum Physics is a decent kind of science
ii) Biology is a decent kind of science

or the slightly more ambitious

B)
i) Everything unpredictable is due to god
ii) Quantum effects can't be predicted
iii) Mutations may be related to single quantum effects
iv) Therefore, goddidit.

?
 
Jan,

?
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Question is the question isn't it? I'm not saying anything at all. I began with asking a question, "Is there anything wrong with quantum biology?"

I responded to Dr. A with the following: "It seems at least to me that there are a few implications to consider if this is proven to be true; however I'm not the one to name what they are."

So to the scientific community I have to ask, what are the implications if a theoretical multiverse is playing a role in mutation?

Dr. A asks,

Of course all chemistry works according to quantum theory, because this explains how chemistry works. But where do we bring Intelligent Design into this?
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Indeed where? It is my question. What does science say?

Flick
 
Stamen, if there is anything at all to ID, it's in the math. They've got no empirical evidence in favor of ID. So read Dembski's No Free Lunch and decide whether you think the math is good.

~~ Paul
 
Paul,

Stamen, if there is anything at all to ID, it's in the math. They've got no empirical evidence in favor of ID. So read Dembski's No Free Lunch and decide whether you think the math is good.
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Thanks for the lead, I will certainly give it a look after I finish my evolution reading commitments (maybe by late fall). I suppose for me though, it really isn't about ID at all... its about what questions can be reasonably asked compared with what questions actually get asked from any data set or theory. I've only glanced at quantum biology out of curiousity-- don't even pretend to understand it, but if it has something to say about mutation at all, then I'm interested in the way that what it says is approached and what questions we take to the theoretical conundrums.

If an ordered multiverse impacting mutation is an actual mathematical probability, then I fail to see why that wouldn't have implications worth at least talking about.

As I've said, I'm not fit to ask these questions myself, but I would think one could generate some dandies, but only if one were so inclined.

Flick
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Stamen, if there is anything at all to ID, it's in the math.
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The math isn't any good, either. More to the point, it's irrelevant, because Dembski is computing the probability that the pieces of the flagellum, floating about, would assemble by chance and form the whole flagellum, which has nothing to do with the probability of the genetic changes coming about to code for the flagellum.

More on Dembski: http://www.talkorigins.org/design/faqs/nfl/
 
As a former proponent of ID all I can say is {yawn}. This kind of clpatrap is so old. This is a common tactic to take ideas and find some kind of link. I detailed in another thread how a friend of mine tried to tie Einstein's Relativity to the scripture about 1 day to god being a thousand years to man. The links are at beast tangential and there is little if any detail as to the relevance of these little nugets.

Few e-mails have ever stopped me as cold as the one I am about to describe.
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Oh please, grow up.
 
stamenflicker said:
I suppose for me though, it really isn't about ID at all... its about what questions can be reasonably asked compared with what questions actually get asked from any data set or theory. I've only glanced at quantum biology out of curiousity-- don't even pretend to understand it, but if it has something to say about mutation at all, then I'm interested in the way that what it says is approached and what questions we take to the theoretical conundrums.

If an ordered multiverse impacting mutation is an actual mathematical probability, then I fail to see why that wouldn't have implications worth at least talking about.
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I still don't get it. What kind of "implications worth at least talking about" do you expect? That Quantum Biology will give us a better understanding how ATP synthesis works? That it will give us a better understanding why the modern synthesis of Evolution Theory is wrong? Or something?
 
stamenflicker said:
Indeed where? It is my question. What does science say?
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Well, a mutation is caused by chemical events which can be explained using QM. If that happens without any sort of outside direction, we've got Darwinian evolution. If God gives it a nudge now and then, we've got theistic evolution.

Bringing the quantum level of explanation into it doesn't shed light on this one way or the other. We don't have to go that deep to understand things --- we wouldn't study a clockwork mechanism on the quantum level, nor even on the atomic or molecular level, but on the level of the cogs and springs. Anyone who thinks it necessary to produce a quantum theory of clockwork to explain how a clock can tell the time is missing the point.

In the same way, it isn't necessary to drag QM into our picture of evolution, which can be looked at on the level of genetics. The question is whether genetic change is random or directed.

What the "professor" seems to have done is reasoned as follows:

(a) I am utterly ignorant of quantum theory
(b) Therefore, so far as I know, quantum theory might be the mechanism by which God directs evolution
(c) As this hypothesis involves God existing, it confirms my religious prejudices, and is therefore correct.

He has not spotted that if God plays a part in evolution, it must necessarily be by supervention of natural laws (leave it up to natural laws, and we have Darwinism) because he is, of course, a freakin' idiot. I still want to know what he's a professor of. I'm ready to rule out theology now.
 
The author of the Wingnut Daily article is one Kelly Hollowell, but I suspect it's really Kelly Bundy. She admits the original material may be a hoax, but it is so full of the usual Creationist tripe that I suspect it's just more of the same old Loony extrapolation of creationism. She offers the tired old cop-out, "I'll let you decide"--typical of so many ill-qualified journalists today.
 
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