Not being a scientist, these discussions by well informed individuals are fascinating and informative for me.
I wonder to what extent the thinking by the naturalists in the room is driven by defining science as methodological naturalism.
When evolutionary development is explained with respect to unpredictable quantum phenomenon, this is where I as an amateur philosopher take notice.
Science is methodological naturalism which is why scientists of all religions and no religion can work shoulder to shoulder within science. You make a hypothesis (and null hypothesis), and if the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis then the hypothesis is tentatively accepted. At it’s most basic, it is the same thing mechanics, plumbers, and cabinet makers do.
Quantum mechanics does seem to be a popular hobby horse for amateur philosophers. For biology, it really isn’t that much of an issue, no more so than for any other application of chemistry.
Semantic definitions apply to language. While we use the metaphors of “code” and “language” and “writing” and “reading” to think about how DNA functions, these are just conceptual metaphors that help us understand processs better. DNA is not a language. It’s base pairs in an order.
Okay, if that is the case then (unless you are prone to speaking without thinking) there is obviously something else that motivated you to respond the way you did. You did not ignore what I wrote, instead you told me that my comments were off-topic and clearly unwelcome. My comments, as you assessed them, were “not really relevant to the discussion”, and added that this thread was limited to “the appearance of irreducible complexity during the course of evolution” — even though you must have known at the very moment you wrote those words that they were entirely untrue.
Clearly, obviously, there is no such rule limiting the discussion of IC on this forum, and just as clearly, there isn’t anything within the conversation itself that would imply such a limit, even as a personal request.
I might add, in place of just ignoring my comments or earnestly addressing the IC system I put on the table (i.e. the specification/control of amino acids from encoded memory), you instead questioned the phrase “rate-independent control of a rate dependent process” — which is a well-placed physicist’s term introduced into the biological literature more than 50 years ago. As a trained physicist yourself, it strains credibility that you would fail to grasp the term in this context and need any further clarification. You then ended that inquiry by implying that you could indeed use the mathematics of physics to explain and describe the existence and make-up of the relationship between a codon and an amino acid — which not only betrays a disregard for the history of discovery, but is a feat you have no chance whatsoever of accomplishing. It is little wonder that you backtracked on that claim in your very next paragraph.
I see now by other comments in this thread that you must be a favored expert in the forum, and I have no desire to concern the moderators. So may I simply suggest to you that next time someone says something that rattles your assumptions, you should take your own advice and just ignore it.
regards…
I made a hypothesis recently in my conservation work. Given that thanks to climate shifting we are having cooler yet drier summers here, I ventured the hypothesis that if I plant native trees in low spots to which rain runs and soaks in long before higher spots gain any moisture in the sand then the survival rate of those trees should be improved.
I won’t know until this time next year how it turns out.
DNA lacks grammar.
The original post set the discussion in terms of “in biology”. That limits the topic to “the course of evolution”.
So he was entirely correct and his words were not “entirely untrue”.
You also believe that God has answered healing prayer for you in the past. How do you look at that now along side methodological naturalism?
Did I ever share with you the video Anton Petrov does on how quantum tunneling may be making a way for organic chemistry on Titan? In the video he also looks at a study which potentially shows how QM changes DNA.
When an event like this is observed, would an explanation by M-theory be within the realm of naturalism?
Maybe, it is important to realize that DNA is not a language in the same sense as a book is not a language. It’s only paper and ink characters in a specific order.
Anybody who brings a depth of seasoned and professional expertise to subject areas of interest, and who shares the light of their knowledge in ways that helps others understand creation or theology better tend to be highly respected around here. And Steve is definitely one of those - your spidey sense is right on!
If Steve has ever gotten rattled around here by anyone - it must have escaped my notice. When he fails to find something convincing, he always has excellent reasons - and the rest of us learn from hearing those reasons. The last thing we want him to do is ignore stuff that shouldn’t be ignored. We don’t operate like some of the other creationist sites to which you might be accustomed. We welcome challenges and challengers. Pursuit of truth should be a high priority for any Christian - and to the extent that anybody begins to fear that pursuit, it does not bode well for their theology.
In this earlier response, I saw the following:
It is true that the kind of statistics that you describe is wrong. However, Thorvaldson clearly didn’t work that way. I had checked that some years ago, since I was extremely aware of that problem at that time.
If we can’t say anything about evolution with all current knowledge that we have of the DNA sequences connected to protein functions, I interprete that as, that evolutionary theory on molecular level doesn’t belong to the scientific field.
However, you have a new reaction, and I need a bit more time to read that and see, where we can find each other. Thank you for the effort.
It’s more than that. Language arises when minds want to communicate messages and develop a functional semiotic system to do so. It’s much more than a decipherable code. The whole idea of semantics is tied to how humans use language, you can’t just impose it on any old “code.”
Dude, I am a linguist. I study language and cognition for my job. You don’t have to take my word for it, but I’m definitely not going to assume you know more than me on this topic and can explain how DNA really is a language in some sense. It’s not. A book that records human language is far more than paper and ink characters in a specific order, and I think you know that. Comparing DNA to a language is an analogy. It is not a definition. It’s like comparing how electrons behave to water and talking about current. It’s a useful analogy. But it would be dumb to then argue that properties that apply to water also have to apply to electricity because electricity “flows.”
A change in information is new information, even if there is no quantitative increase to the total amount of information. If there were no change in information, there would be no alteration to the outcome; however, mutations amplify or attenuate depending on their feedback from natural selection. If it has an impact, it follows that there has been change.
Processes such as duplication and epistasis can, of course, increase total information.
Agree completely as concerns language and DNA, but while there are differences, hydraulics and electrodynamics share many similarities which reduce to the same fundamental physics, and can yield fruitful guidance to cross understanding. This applies to common concepts such as voltage, current, capacitance, and resistance, but also super conductivity and super fluidity.
Interesting that we are over 100 replies into this topic and an answer to the initial question has not been proposed. But, it is not surprising as I have yet to see one that is truly satisfying.
Could you support this statement? Where in their calculations did they take into account all of the possible paths that evolution could have taken?
We can say a lot about evolution without being able to calculate everything about it. We have an enormous range of data showing that species are related genetically and geographically to previous species. We have an abundance of evidence that new features in species are based on modifications of existing features. We know that species are constantly changing genetically through mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift, and we know that the genetic differences between species look like the accumulated results of such changes. We know that the rate of morphological change seen in the fossil record is much slower than the rate we can directly observe in species today.
Taken together, and in the absence of any other model that explains any of the evidence, we have concluded that evolution by natural processes explains the history of life to this point, even if we can’t model the probabilities involved exactly.
Thank you for an ongoing civil exchange.
Right, that’s why it’s such a useful analogy. But at the end of the day, you have to understand electricity as electricity and not assume it’s water. I’ll happily concede the water to electricity analogy is better than the language to DNA analogy and that I know far less about electricity and water than language and DNA. There are accurate ways to talk about DNA as a code and accurate ways to talk about language as a code, but there are very inaccurate ways to talk about DNA as a language, that’s my main point.
I’m also sometimes kind of pompous as I try to maintain an air of impartial sagacity. At least in my online persona – in real life, I’m, uh … never mind.
There are no rules. I thought the subject you introduced would be better in another thread than this one (still do). I said so. You disagreed and you said so. The reason for my thought and my suggestion here is that ‘irreducible complexity’ has a contextual history in discussions of evolution. It was advanced by Behe specifically as a argument against the natural formation of new IC systems by the known mechanisms of evolution. That seems to me to be a different subject from how complex cells first formed. You are free to ignore my thoughts on the subject.
I hope your strain heals, because I still do not grasp the meaning of the term in this context. I asked you to expand on your statement because I didn’t understand it – that’s quite often why I ask questions. There are any number of thing that I should know but don’t.
No, I said physics could explain the make-up of that relationship – which it can, since it’s just molecules acting according to the usual rules of physics. That’s not a statement I’m likely to backtrack on.
I am genuinely sorry that I’ve upset you, but nothing in our exchange had anything to do with my assumptions being upset. I was hoping to preserve this thread for the discussion of examples of IC systems evolving, and I was also trying to understand what you meant by rate-dependence. I’ve failed on both counts.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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