Philosophy Now Forum

Wyman wrote:

Natural selection is a principle that is so natural, so inevitable, that it cannot be relevant to Darwinism or any other theory designed to explain the existence of biological life.

That's kind of what I was saying when I said isn't it really just as well explained by a more mundane appeal to chance, which would encompass NS. I do not have any strong opinion as to the mechanism for change, which you are apparently quite interested in. I would provisionally believe what I'm fed by scientists that it is based on genetic mutation, but I have no qualms admitting that this is just a belief based on authority, as I know nothing about genetics.

NS has very little to do with chance, but continual variation upon which all evolving life depends for variable responses to changing environmental conditions.

Greylorn Ell wrote:Did you now?

My mistake, the molecular biologists.

DNA contains code for the construction of proteins. However, no scientist has identified how DNA codes for structure, i.e. the arrangement of those proteins within a body. I'm certain that the structural blueprints are in there, but no scientist smart enough to figure them out has yet to appear.

What do you mean by "the arrangement of those proteins within a body."?

DNA is a code, and only a code. By itself it is useless. What accounts for the cellular machinery that decodes the DNA, generates the proteins, carries them safely from the cell that constructed them and transports them to the parts of the body wherein they are needed?

I thought molecular biology accounted for the cellular machinery that uses DNA as a storage base?

I've written computer code for a living for better than 50 years. Back in the sixties, the code consisted of rectangular holes punched in Hollerith cards, or circular holes punched into a strip of paper tape. These days the codes consist of tiny bits of ferrite material on a rotating disk, or electronic states within a flash stick. These codes all require one thing in common-- a machine capable of translating them in a useful and functional manner.

I thought the Cell just such a machine?

I have an old strip of punched paper tape in storage. The codes on that tape were once decoded by a small computer, which transmitted some of them through a NASA telemetry system to another computer that was part of a telescope in orbit around the earth. The codes were then further decoded to reposition the telescope to point at a particular star, and then to execute a precise observing sequence. The project was successful. So what good are the codes on my paper tape?

You could fund someone to build an emulator or even amend them for a mobile app to track stars, etc.

The same is true of DNA. You can leave a strip of it around forever and it will do nothing. It only functions in the context of the decoding mechanisms within a cell. From whence arose the cell and those mechanisms? That is the real question that anyone actually looking for an honest understanding of the nature and purpose of life must answer.

I thought the current thought was looking at lipids, amino-acids and proteins and an RNA world?

Darwinism offers a potential mechanism of how DNA might change so as to produce an ongoing series of new critters without the intervention of intelligent engineering. It is the equivalent of a computer programming course employing random-change principles to create effective new programs, in which the students do not actually think about codes and purpose, but merely throw darts at old Hollerith cards tacked to the wall, then remove the cards with their randomly scattered holes and feed them into a computer, in hopes that the computer will make sense of them.

The students' job in such a course would be to act as the "Natural Selectors," to alert the professor whenever a stack of the randomly punched cards actually does something interesting. (The computer cannot do this itself.)

The question that goes begging, both in the context of Darwinism and my silly random-programming course, is, from whence do the translating mechanisms come? That is the only important question. Development of the codes themselves is barely relevant to the question.

So, good Darwinist. Tell us how the first cell, complete with its protective membrane, internal decoding and transport mechanisms, a storeroom full of the amino acids needed for protein assembly, another storeroom containing enough nucleotides to assemble RNA and tRNA, plus the initial snippet of DNA necessary to replicate itself, came to be.

I thought current thought was postulating an RNA world, with likely a predecessor of some sort to that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis

And kindly stop calling me names. Name-calling is the hallmark of those who are too futile to intelligently defend their cherished beliefs with legitimate information and cogent logic. You are better than that.

Thank you,
Greylorn

But you are a godbotherer?

Greylorn Ell wrote:Wyman,
Thank you. I am learning a lot from these series of questions. Not about theories of evolution, but about how effectively the Darwinist machine has sold normally intelligent people on a theory that does not work. They've used misdirection. They've focused upon NS (Natural Selection) as the essential component of Darwinism, as if this simple principle was somehow exclusive to Darwinists. That is absurd. ...

What other field used it at the time? As religion certainly didn't.

Natural selection is a principle that is so natural, so inevitable, that it cannot be relevant to Darwinism or any other theory designed to explain the existence of biological life.

Well, it's not relevant to Darwin in that sense as he was explaining Species not claiming he'd solved Abogenisis.

Let's suppose, for example, that evolutionary mechanisms produced a small animal that ate lots of greens and produced lots of fat and protein. Let's call it a "quiklunch." The quiklunch has poor eyesight, just enough to enable it to see the greens that comprise its diet. It has broad flat teeth for munching greens, no fangs or incisors that might be useful for defensive purposes. It's legs are fat and short so that it can stay close to the ground where its food is. Its legs terminate in the equivalent of diminutive fingers and toes, useful for grabbing vegetables but not worth much as defensive mechanisms. Its fastest speed is about 4 kilometers per hour. It cannot burrow into the ground or climb trees. What is the likelihood that the quiklunch will survive as a species?

We all know the answer. It cannot possibly survive.

They're called Tortoises and their prototype was around about 200,000,000 years ago.

Now suppose that instead of the quiklunch coming into existence by Darwinian mechanisms, that it was created by an Almighty God, instantly. In a single mighty act of creation, millions of quiklunches were created on every continent. How long would they survive? A week? Perhaps a month in locales bereft of predators?

About 200,000,000 years.

Surely you get the idea. Natural Selection is irrelevant to the real question-- the mechanisms of biological creation. It makes no difference to N.S. how a particular critter happens to show up on this planet. Therefore, N.S. is completely irrelevant to Darwinism.

Not so, very relevant to Darwin as it explains how individuals get weeded and how species appear and disappear. If the mechanisms of biological creation are chemical then NS will also apply as the environment will select those that are most stable, prolific, etc.

The only relevant aspect of Darwinism is its mechanisms for the generation of the species and varieties to be selected. Darwin postulated the need for a mechanism that would preserve a species' essential characteristics, allowing it to stabilize, yet also permit its evolution into varieties, and into entirely new species. That mechanism was, according to Darwin and his followers, some kind of random change to whatever structures determined the characteristics of a critter.

Did he say 'random'? I thought he just said change, and incrementally small ones at that.

As I've demonstrated many times before, and which I detail extensively in my book, given the nature and structure of genomes, and particularly the size (900-1500 base pairs) of most individual genes, the probability that these code sequences can change, randomly, into new and useful forms, is mathematically impossible. 1.4 x 10exp-542 for a single, small, 900 base-pair gene to even come into existence.

Still waiting for your recalculation that takes into account NS as a factor and the possible rates of chemical change going on at the time, although does this mean you agree with the idea that we are all developed from simple cells in an NS environment?

If you do not approve of that analysis, do your own or read my damned book. Pretend for a minute that you are thinking like a scientist and basing your arguments on facts and logic. If you persist in thinking like a philosopher who merely argues for the belief system programmed into his undeveloped brain in school, there's not a damned thing that I can do to help.

But this is you? You can't shake your Jesuit education so have re-invented a 'god' and 'soul' and a 'creation myth' to fit with your later education.

Arising_uk wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:Did you now?

My mistake, the molecular biologists.

DNA contains code for the construction of proteins. However, no scientist has identified how DNA codes for structure, i.e. the arrangement of those proteins within a body. I'm certain that the structural blueprints are in there, but no scientist smart enough to figure them out has yet to appear.

What do you mean by "the arrangement of those proteins within a body."?

DNA is a code, and only a code. By itself it is useless. What accounts for the cellular machinery that decodes the DNA, generates the proteins, carries them safely from the cell that constructed them and transports them to the parts of the body wherein they are needed?

I thought molecular biology accounted for the cellular machinery that uses DNA as a storage base?

I've written computer code for a living for better than 50 years. Back in the sixties, the code consisted of rectangular holes punched in Hollerith cards, or circular holes punched into a strip of paper tape. These days the codes consist of tiny bits of ferrite material on a rotating disk, or electronic states within a flash stick. These codes all require one thing in common-- a machine capable of translating them in a useful and functional manner.

I thought the Cell just such a machine?

I have an old strip of punched paper tape in storage. The codes on that tape were once decoded by a small computer, which transmitted some of them through a NASA telemetry system to another computer that was part of a telescope in orbit around the earth. The codes were then further decoded to reposition the telescope to point at a particular star, and then to execute a precise observing sequence. The project was successful. So what good are the codes on my paper tape?

You could fund someone to build an emulator or even amend them for a mobile app to track stars, etc.

The same is true of DNA. You can leave a strip of it around forever and it will do nothing. It only functions in the context of the decoding mechanisms within a cell. From whence arose the cell and those mechanisms? That is the real question that anyone actually looking for an honest understanding of the nature and purpose of life must answer.

I thought the current thought was looking at lipids, amino-acids and proteins and an RNA world?

Darwinism offers a potential mechanism of how DNA might change so as to produce an ongoing series of new critters without the intervention of intelligent engineering. It is the equivalent of a computer programming course employing random-change principles to create effective new programs, in which the students do not actually think about codes and purpose, but merely throw darts at old Hollerith cards tacked to the wall, then remove the cards with their randomly scattered holes and feed them into a computer, in hopes that the computer will make sense of them.

The students' job in such a course would be to act as the "Natural Selectors," to alert the professor whenever a stack of the randomly punched cards actually does something interesting. (The computer cannot do this itself.)

The question that goes begging, both in the context of Darwinism and my silly random-programming course, is, from whence do the translating mechanisms come? That is the only important question. Development of the codes themselves is barely relevant to the question.

So, good Darwinist. Tell us how the first cell, complete with its protective membrane, internal decoding and transport mechanisms, a storeroom full of the amino acids needed for protein assembly, another storeroom containing enough nucleotides to assemble RNA and tRNA, plus the initial snippet of DNA necessary to replicate itself, came to be.

I thought current thought was postulating an RNA world, with likely a predecessor of some sort to that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis

And kindly stop calling me names. Name-calling is the hallmark of those who are too futile to intelligently defend their cherished beliefs with legitimate information and cogent logic. You are better than that.

Thank you,
Greylorn

But you are a godbotherer?

I was wrong about you being better than that. Sorry.

Given your general rudeness about others in the past I find your thin skin a little thick.

Still, you're right as it allows you to skip replies so counter-productive.

Greylorn Ell wrote:
I was wrong about you being better than that. Sorry.

So you are a godbotherer!
Obviously you are ashamed to admit it.

Lev Muishkin wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote: Darwin did not predict DNA, so you can stand up and wipe the brown stains off your lips. He predicted a mechanism by which the characteristics of critters could be changed. He did not specify the details of that mechanism..

He did more than that. He predicted the need for something like DNA. He predicted the need for genes as units of inheritability.
It is the mark of great understanding when a theory predicts something upon which it is ultimately based.

Thanks for my daily dose of pseudo-scientific bullpucky.

Yep, Charlie predicted the need for something like DNA. He also predicted that the "DNA" would be subject to random mutations, and that these mutations would produce the lifeform changes that Natural Selection would select.

Since he did not know the exact mechanism, he could not have hired the services of a mathematician who knew how to calculate the probabilities involved in those mutations. After all, random events are subject to statistical math. Upon the discovery of the mechanism, DNA, we have learned enough about the mechanisms to do the math.

However, the math is not published by nitwit Darwinists, because it shows unequivocally that Darwinism is absolute bullshit. Here is a simple example:

The human genome, the entire collection of information that codes for a particular body, contains about 23,000 genes that generate large protein molecules. The smallest of these genes contain about 900 nucleotide base-pairs, the largest about 1500.

If we base some simple probability calculations upon the smallest 900 base-pair genes, so as to be favorable to Darwinists, and calculate the probability of a single useful change to such a gene, it comes out to about 1.4 x 10exp-542.

That is a decimal point followed by 541 zeros, then 14. This is a very small and improbable number. It applies to only one of 23,000 genes. Probabilities multiply, so that the likelihood of an entire human genome coming into existence via random chance is truly ugly, smaller than one chance in 10exp-1,000,000 possibilities.

By way of reference, the probability standard for "it cannot happen" is 10exp-40.

Welcome to Darwinist la-la land.

Greylorn

Wyman wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:

Wyman wrote:The other unexplained mystery is consciousness, right?

Wyman,
Wrong, sorry about that. I've already explained consciousness, and rather elegantly, if I must say so myself. Shit. I just wrenched my shoulder patting myself on the back. Another $60 for the chiropractor.

Wyman wrote:Dumb question - how is evolution not just "everything proceeds by chance?"

We need to get the terminology straight before asking questions like this, as I've tried unsuccessfully to explain to at least one nincompoop. It is important to distinguish between the factual process (evolution of species and varieties) and theories that try to explain the process (e.g. Darwinism, neo-Darwinism, Lamarckism, Creationism, and ultimately, Beon Theory).

How about reformulating your last question in that context? Doing so might be helpful to others.
Thanks,
Greylorn

Evolution in the first sense - organisms (in this context, that's why I thought biological evolution was appropriate) change over time.

I think of the Buttes or Window Rock in Arizona. They were shaped over millions of years by the wind. Whatever shape they are, is a matter of chance, although imperfect explanations are possible (obviously, it's the wind, but tracing the scene back or predicting the future exactly would be difficult).

You start out talking about biological evolution, which involves complex structural changes to organisms produced by coding changes at the microbiological level. Then you support this by referring to the erosion of large chunks of rock by wind. How far up your ass can you stick your head?

Wyman wrote:Natural selection seems to be one explanation of what we see in the evidence collected - one causal factor working along with others, making exact predictions and explanations difficult.

I keep trying to explain that NS is not a causal factor. Of the handful of people on this thread with marginally functional minds, I really hoped that you would get the point. Obviously not. Shit. I'm disappointed, having made the mistake of higher expectations.

Wyman wrote:And what do you base your odds of a human cell developing, above? It is very unlikely that one would pop out of thin air, but are you applying your analysis to each incremental change - I have doubts as to the possibility of any such analysis.

I have already explained the basis for the probabilities involved in changes to an existing human cell. The probability that the first human cell could develop from any version of primeval muck cannot be calculated, because no one has devised a possible mechanism for such an event.

Lev Muishkin wrote:
Gosh - it must be god doing all that!

If that's the best that you can come up with, then go with it. In the Muslim world you could be regarded as a brilliant Imam, perhaps another prophet.

Greylorn

Arising_uk wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:Did you now?

My mistake, the molecular biologists.

DNA contains code for the construction of proteins. However, no scientist has identified how DNA codes for structure, i.e. the arrangement of those proteins within a body. I'm certain that the structural blueprints are in there, but no scientist smart enough to figure them out has yet to appear.

What do you mean by "the arrangement of those proteins within a body."?

DNA is a code, and only a code. By itself it is useless. What accounts for the cellular machinery that decodes the DNA, generates the proteins, carries them safely from the cell that constructed them and transports them to the parts of the body wherein they are needed?

I thought molecular biology accounted for the cellular machinery that uses DNA as a storage base?

I've written computer code for a living for better than 50 years. Back in the sixties, the code consisted of rectangular holes punched in Hollerith cards, or circular holes punched into a strip of paper tape. These days the codes consist of tiny bits of ferrite material on a rotating disk, or electronic states within a flash stick. These codes all require one thing in common-- a machine capable of translating them in a useful and functional manner.

I thought the Cell just such a machine?

I have an old strip of punched paper tape in storage. The codes on that tape were once decoded by a small computer, which transmitted some of them through a NASA telemetry system to another computer that was part of a telescope in orbit around the earth. The codes were then further decoded to reposition the telescope to point at a particular star, and then to execute a precise observing sequence. The project was successful. So what good are the codes on my paper tape?

You could fund someone to build an emulator or even amend them for a mobile app to track stars, etc.

The same is true of DNA. You can leave a strip of it around forever and it will do nothing. It only functions in the context of the decoding mechanisms within a cell. From whence arose the cell and those mechanisms? That is the real question that anyone actually looking for an honest understanding of the nature and purpose of life must answer.

I thought the current thought was looking at lipids, amino-acids and proteins and an RNA world?

Darwinism offers a potential mechanism of how DNA might change so as to produce an ongoing series of new critters without the intervention of intelligent engineering. It is the equivalent of a computer programming course employing random-change principles to create effective new programs, in which the students do not actually think about codes and purpose, but merely throw darts at old Hollerith cards tacked to the wall, then remove the cards with their randomly scattered holes and feed them into a computer, in hopes that the computer will make sense of them.

The students' job in such a course would be to act as the "Natural Selectors," to alert the professor whenever a stack of the randomly punched cards actually does something interesting. (The computer cannot do this itself.)

The question that goes begging, both in the context of Darwinism and my silly random-programming course, is, from whence do the translating mechanisms come? That is the only important question. Development of the codes themselves is barely relevant to the question.

So, good Darwinist. Tell us how the first cell, complete with its protective membrane, internal decoding and transport mechanisms, a storeroom full of the amino acids needed for protein assembly, another storeroom containing enough nucleotides to assemble RNA and tRNA, plus the initial snippet of DNA necessary to replicate itself, came to be.

I thought current thought was postulating an RNA world, with likely a predecessor of some sort to that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis

And kindly stop calling me names. Name-calling is the hallmark of those who are too futile to intelligently defend their cherished beliefs with legitimate information and cogent logic. You are better than that.

Thank you,
Greylorn

But you are a godbotherer?

After consideration of your questions, all of which could be answered with personal research into the available information, I'm pretty well convinced that you are an ignorant little pirck, and determined to remain in that happy state. Nothing that I can write will ever change what passes in you for a mind.

Greylorn

Lev Muishkin wrote:
It's like saying that god is irrelevant to Christianity.

Thank you. I am learning a lot from these series of questions. Not about theories of creationism (there are none), but about how effectively the Religous machine has sold normally intelligent people on a non-theory that does not mean anything. They've used misdirection. They've focused upon God as the essential component of the universe, as if this simple fantasy was somehow exclusive to biology. That is absurd.

Greylorn wrote: Hey, Munchkin,

You're not learning a damned thing, because you are interpreting everything you read according to your brain's programming. You do not actually comprehend any of the posts to which you reply.

Your attitude is reflected by the icon you've chosen to display by way of a face; stolid, mindless, well bred, absolutely certain, and totally superficial.

GE

Lev Muishkin wrote:Hey, Greyporn,

Obviously you don't like you own shot thrown back in your face, brain dead twat.

Your problem has been diagnosed. You think that twats have brains. There is no evidence for that, not even from the ignorant Darwinists you so admire.

I am sorry that you are incapable of understanding anything beyond your brain/twat's installed programming, like the religionists you dislike. I can't help you, Munchkin, and have placed you atop my "Stupid poster" list of irrelevant Darwinists and other religionists.

Alas, I'm sorry that our conversations have come to termination, but I'd have more productive conversations with any of the squirrels in my yard.

Greylorn

I keep trying to explain that NS is not a causal factor. Of the handful of people on this thread with marginally functional minds, I really hoped that you would get the point. Obviously not. Shit. I'm disappointed, having made the mistake of higher expectations.

No, no, no, stop being an ass. I know less about biology than I know about physics. All I was asking in this line of conversation was, how is Natural Selection distinguished from simple, random chance as a theory - what distinguishes it? I guess by 'random chance' I mean the very broad definition of 'evolution.'
.
Whether 'causal factor' is the correct terminology or not, you must believe, on some level, that populations are altered in character by environmental factors - Eskimos got shorter and fatter because the tall, skinny ones died of cold or didn't find girlfriends.

Another reason Eskimos could be short and fat is that a small group of short, fat Eskimos was off hunting for fire wood one day when the rest of the Eskimos got hit by a meteor.

I see NS as a sub-type of the broad definition of evolution, where certain inherited traits, because of pressing environmental factors, become so favored that the parts of the population without that trait perish. The meteor scenario would not be described as NS where the first would.

You act as if I am advocating for some position or other, when I am just asking a question. I could go 'look it up' and then come back and use 'proper' terminology, but then everyone would just keep quibbling over definitions anyway and we would be right back at name calling and showing off. Step by step conversations where participants reach common points of understanding before going to the next step are more meaningful. Although I doubt there is anything in this one worth salvaging.

Greylorn Ell wrote:After consideration of your questions, all of which could be answered with personal research into the available information, I'm pretty well convinced that you are an ignorant little pirck, and determined to remain in that happy state. Nothing that I can write will ever change what passes in you for a mind.

Greylorn

Why would I need to do such research when I have you here to answer them, especially since they are to do with your thoughts. If you cannot be bothered to discuss your thoughts why keep spouting off on a philosophy forum? As I doubt your manner will improve your book-sales. Why not just blog and stop wasting our time.

Greylorn Ell wrote:...
I have already explained the basis for the probabilities involved in changes to an existing human cell. The probability that the first human cell could develop from any version of primeval muck cannot be calculated, because no one has devised a possible mechanism for such an event.

You are wrong.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9841/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cells
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Greylorn Ell wrote:...

Yep, Charlie predicted the need for something like DNA. He also predicted that the "DNA" would be subject to random mutations, and that these mutations would produce the lifeform changes that Natural Selection would select. ...

No he didn't, what he said was that small changes that would give an organism a reproductive advantage would though the mechanism of Natural Selection produce the species we see, he also postulated an inheritance mechanism would be needed and with DNA the molecular biologists confirmed his postulate.

Have you read his book?

The human genome, the entire collection of information that codes for a particular body, contains about 23,000 genes that generate large protein molecules. The smallest of these genes contain about 900 nucleotide base-pairs, the largest about 1500.

But the latest theories say that the proteins were largely already around and it's their incorporation into a lipid-like structure that led to the cell with DNA becoming the data repository for their production later in the process.

If we base some simple probability calculations upon the smallest 900 base-pair genes, so as to be favorable to Darwinists, and calculate the probability of a single useful change to such a gene, it comes out to about 1.4 x 10exp-542.

Still waiting for you to amend your calculations with natural selection in mind and possible rates of chemical change at the time.

By way of reference, the probability standard for "it cannot happen" is 10exp-40.

That's the problem with probabilities, they are after the event things.

Welcome to Darwinist la-la land.

Is it like the godbothering loony park?