Hi Thomas- You have expressed your view quite succinctly and clearly; thanks.
As you continue your endeavors, I want to encourage you to formulate a hypothesis that can be falsified by an experiment. Once you reach the point where you can
Enumerate the experiment’s design, equipment, materials, and analysis techniques; and
Explain how the experiment will make a unique contribution to the development of biology;
You will be ready to do science. Well, at least that’s what I have heard scientists say. I wouldn’t be surprised if a real, live biologist could add something useful, of course.
@GodsBiology, you might have misunderstood me. I do not agree with your version of Biology at all. I turns out that God endowed atoms with the intrinsic ability to self-assemble exactly as is needed for life to exist. He does not need to specifically guide each atom into place for our bodies to work.
At the same time, it is very interesting to meet someone who things they are an expert in Biology, but does not know this. Rather, you seem to be arguing for “vitalism,” a notion I thought died out with geocentrism.
I think it’s “vitalism of the gaps”. Technically speaking, we haven’t modeled a bacterial cell in every detail so we can’t confirm that the chemical processes we’ve characterized in great detail come together into a viable unit. Then again, in the course of investigating the operations of living organisms, we’ve yet to find physical processes in biology that requires vitalistic input. Life appears autocatalytic.
There is also a peculiar focus in his writing on the number and types of atoms going in and out of cells for cell health. However, the carbon in graphite, diamond and glucose has very different bioavailability depending on the molecular form. Mammals don’t extract energy from elemental carbon.
There’s some very basic knowledge of biochemistry that seems missing from the formulation of ‘Atomic Biology’. Simply put, running cells and tissues through an atomic absorption spectrometer isn’t going to reveal a lot about the dietary needs or workings of a cell. In terms of elemental composition, L-glucose and D-glucose are identical. However, D-glucose makes for a sugary snack that your body can absorb while L-glucose causes diarrhea and isn’t metabolized by human cells.
Indeed, lots of questions come up. Where is the intelligence in the rabbit’s digestive system? They are hindgut fermemters, and can’t digest their food in one pass. They have to poop it out the first time and then eat their poops for a second pass.
And why not give humans the ability to digest cellulose? It is so abundant! It would stop people from starving to death.
And why give us humans a pseudogene for making vitamin C? Why not a real working gene, so we don’t get scurvy when we don’t get enough vitamin C from our food.
And if God has to poof the breath of life into every cell, why not make sure cells die when they are supposed to (apoptosis), instead of sometimes becoming malignant? Ever seen a tumor? It certainly isn’t the right number of cells. Did you know that half of all men in the USA will get cancer?
I’m confused by this article. Dennis says it’s “misguided” to use the absence of a full materialistic explanation for genetic information as an apologetic argument, but he doesn’t explain why.
Also, I was hoping to find a good treatment of the Intelligent Design arguments, but when the author implies that the design inference is derived from the mere fact that much “remains for science to discover about” the origins of genetic information - ie, that it is a god-of-the-gaps argument - I become very nervous that Intelligent Design is about to be straw-manned rather than engaged. Indeed, the subtitle’s mention of “gaps” confirms this suspicion.
Intelligent Design, and any other inference, is not a god-of-the-gaps argument just because one favors its explanatory power over that of a competing theory. Really, how silly is that? The criterion for being a god-of-the-gaps argument is not that a competing idea is thought to be wrong - or else every idea is in trouble - but that an idea is thought to be correct because a competing idea is wrong. That simply is not the structure of the Intelligent Design argument from information.
Swamidass, if you put all the elements for the assembly of a carrot into a large beaker, and you even put in exactly the right proportions of each element, including adding some water, and place where it can receive some sunshine, do you think the atoms therein will assemble themselves into a carrot? Yes or no.
The idea of atoms self-assembling themselves into even one live cell, is a pipe dream.
I don’t understand why so many in this discussion are adamant about not giving our Creator the credit for Creating.
Perhaps you have never thought this through before.
George, I beg you (and all reading this) to think through exactly what has to happen after you plant a carrot seed (for example) in a garden. What decisions and physical works are performed in finding, sorting, and selecting the right atoms from the wrong ones in the soil, and counting the right numbers of atoms of each element for building the first root hair cell; then precisely assembling these selected atoms into each vital part of each root cell (the nucleolus, chromatin, nuclear pore, nuclear envelope all for the nucleus, the rough endoplasmic reticulum, ribosomes, peroxisome, golgi apparatus, smooth endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondrion, secretory vesicle, plasma membrane, etc.) precisely assembling these parts into each complete root cell; then beginning the assembly of each cell for the body of the carrot and the leaves by finding, sorting, selecting and precisely assembling the right number of the right atoms for each complex part of each complex body and leaf cell; doing all this precision work in sequence; then hooking up all the cells with the essential ‘plumbing’ to deliver nutrients to each cell, etc.
There is brilliant physical work, care, and nanotechnology involved. It does not just happen by magic, electromagnetism, or straight chemical reactions.
The study of this brilliant work is the purpose of atomic biology.
If you put the right ingredients, they WILL assemble into a carrot all by themselves. You can do this yourself and see it happen yourself. The right ingredients are a carrot seed, fertile dirt, some water, air, and sunshine. In time this will self assemble, on its own, into a carrot. Amazing really. I agree.
It turns out that scientist have been studying this exact process for over a 100 years, and we can see clearly how God has endowed the atoms in carrots the ability to assemble themselves, without appearing to require His continual intervention. Carrot atoms are formed into carrot molecules that know how to manufacture more carrot molecules, all on their own.
No one, not even you, has been able to demonstrate that a carrot requires God’s direct intervention to grow. Of course, as Christians, we believe God sustains all things, including the carrot. In this case, most Christians are convinced that God sustains the carrot through the intrinsic properties God has granted the carrot’s atoms. Amazing really, but it appears to be true.
I know you are a vitalist, so this must seem like the most unbelievable and non-intuitive nonsense imaginable. Great. Science is not intuitive. No surprise there. Go about your work in peace. We harbor no ill will to you. Just remember, you worship God no less than the theistic evolutionist, whom God has granted the confidence to recognize evolution as His creative and beautiful work.
Actually Eddie, it is not cheating. Look at what @GodsBiology has written. He thinks that God is required to explain basic bodily functions in fully formed organisms. He thinks we need to invoke God to explain how carrots grow from seeds.
Surprising, yes. But he is a vitalist. So not so surprising.
Eddie is observant. I said “elements” and “atoms” meaning chemical elemental atoms, not a seed which already has a highly complex and brilliantly constructed group of cells within it.
Hopefully you will be able to understand our concept of the Godly science of atomic biology one day.
So it seems that you are changing your argument. Hopefully that means you are changing your mind. Great!
You, now, are arguing that God is necessary to explain how life arises from non life. Many theistic evolutionists (for totally different reasons) agree with you on this point. Science currently cannot demonstrate natural processes could produce the first cell (this is called abiogenesis). It may never figure this out. It is possible that God’s action was required. Biological evolution, however, is different than abiogenesis. If this is all your point is, this is not necessarily a point of contention.
At the same time, I does seem like you are arguing something different. I really seems like you just switched your argument. =)
Thank you George.
I believe our hypothesis regarding atomic biology is based 50/50 on research and logic.
A large part of our work is to bring our Creator God who is a highly recognized part of the governments of our western nations, (“In God We Trust”; “…one nation under God”; “God Bless America”; “God Save the Queen”, etc.) back into our classrooms. How crazy is it that it is virtually illegal to teach our students anything about the God of their government?
You are incorrectly restating GodsBiology’s post and (as far as I can tell from his earlier statements) misunderstanding his arguments. He’s not arguing that intelligence had to be involved in creating the first template of life, or even the first carrot template. That would be an intelligent design argument. He’s arguing that every living cell requires intelligent work by the creator to assemble the necessary atoms, and that living cells are not fundamentally a set of chemicals undergoing chemical reactions. Rather, every cell has be be imbued with a special Breath of Life that isn’t mere chemistry.
That’s vitalism plus direct supernatural involvement in every living thing, not intelligent design.
Sometimes you really have to understand what a conversation is about before jumping in. My point is that GodsBiology’s thought experiment is not evidence that something other than chemistry is required for carrots to grow, which is (if I understand it correctly) their claim. I think there are established natural processes that turn carrot seed plus water, dirt and light into carrots; GodsBiology claims otherwise.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a real, live biologist could add something useful, of course.