What direct observations or measurements?
In science?
Then show me any instance of anyone in science saying that the prediction has anything to do with whether someone does or doesn’t provide some description or “must demonstrate” something.
Bio…
You are fishing off of a peer in a pond where there are no fish.
All this discussion … and the applicability of the search for Alien Life as a paradigm for demonstrating the INTENTIONALITY of Cosmic Intelligent Design has yet to be established.
But, please sir, DO carry on …
Ben,
What direct observations or measurements?
I’ve already provided these. If you say again that I haven’t, I will turn right around and post them again. It will be another instance where you make a claim and it is immediately contradicted by statements recorded on this thread.
No, you have provided nothing of the sort. You wouldn’t need to write so many words if you did.
Ben: What direct observations or measurements?
Bio: I’ve already provided these. If you say again that I haven’t, I will turn right around and post them again. It will be another instance where you make a claim and it is immediately contradicted by statements recorded on this thread.
Ben: No, you have provided nothing of the sort.
Here they are again:
On item #1 of the test: a) that the arrangement of bases in each codon results in alternate amino acids being presented for binding, b) that the aaRS establishes the amino acid-to-anticodon association, and c) that the amino acid-to-anticodon association is spatially and temporally isolated from the pairing of codons to anticodons during translation.
On item #2 of the test: the arrangement of the bases in each codon is independent of the minimum total potential energy state of mRNA.
On item #3 of the test: that the constraints of a reading-frame code (Crick) are necessary to proper translation, (example: initiation at a specific location, direction of reading, and stop functions are necessary for proper translation).
None of those are direct observations or measurements!
Here’s one that works well with third graders:
“Does your dog understand English?”
“Sure, he understands “Sit!””
“Does he understand the word itself or the way in which you are saying it? Those are hypotheses. What predictions do they make?”
“How about if we say a different word in the same way and see if the dog sits or not?”
“Exactly! That’s science.”
– facepalm –
You mean you finally get the point?
In order to defend your position, you have now been reduced to suggesting that we do not know the mechanics of translation by observation. The point in on top of your head.
[quote=“Biosemiosis.org, post:72, topic:4328, full:true”]
In order to defend your position, you have now been reduced to suggesting that we do not know the mechanics of translation by observation.[/quote]
Do you not understand the meaning of “direct”?
We have inferred the mechanics of translation using the scientific method by testing the empirical predictions of many successive hypotheses, the same way that we know the mechanics of evolution. We do not and cannot directly observe the mechanics of translation, nor of evolution.
[quote]The point in on top of your head.
[/quote] The point in on?
Ben, you’ve twisted yourself in quite a knot.
You say that we cannot “DIRECTLY” observe that changes in bases result in changes in amino acids, but we can infer that this is the case by observing the results of tests. (This is dumpster fire of reasoning, but whatever). From this, we hand out Nobel prizes and teach all biology students that changes in bases result in changes in amino acids.
Yet, when I say that a requirement of my test states that changes in bases result in changes in amino acids – suddenly – we must observe this phenomenon “DIRECTLY”.
Do you have any idea how desperate you look?
The bottom line is that you are rocking back and forth in equivocation. You simply cannot allow there to be any such test, or else you’d have to give up your rhetoric against design. The elephant in the room is that none of the specifications in the test is even controversial. And thus, you have demonstrated that there is no absurdity that you are not willing to go to in order to conceal this fact.
[quote=“Biosemiosis.org, post:74, topic:4328”]
You say that we cannot “DIRECTLY” observe that changes in bases result in changes in amino acids, [/quote]
What I said was:
[quote]but we can infer that this is the case by observing the results of tests.
[/quote]Mere observation was not sufficient to infer the mechanics of translation. It involved many iterations of hypotheses and predictions, not post hoc observations as you seem to be saying.
[quote=“Biosemiosis.org, post:74, topic:4328”]
From this, we hand out Nobel prizes and teach all biology students that changes in bases result in changes in amino acids.
[/quote]No, Nobel prizes were for determining the mechanics of translation IIRC.
[quote=“Biosemiosis.org, post:74, topic:4328”]
Yet, when I say that a requirement of my test states that changes in bases result in changes in amino acids – suddenly – we must observe this phenomenon “DIRECTLY”.
[/quote]No, I said that the predictions of your hypothesis need to be direct, empirical observations. You inserted all the gobbledygook about requirements, demonstrations, and descriptions, apparently to distract from the fact that you have no empirical predictions. Even worse, “changes in bases result in changes in amino acids” wasn’t even in your alleged predictions. Where did that come from?
As with all your other obfuscationist responses, you never seem to get to the heart of the matter.
Clearly. the procedures of science have established how the translation system operates. Knowing how the system operates is required to write textbooks and guide research, but is also required in the test provided.
But why is it that those procedures are sufficient for writing textbooks and guiding research, yet suddenly insufficient when it comes to the test. This is the equivocation you cannot hide.
Yet the answer is transparently obvious – there is no reason.
[quote=“Biosemiosis.org, post:76, topic:4328”]
Clearly. the procedures of science have established how the translation system operates.[/quote]
Yes. Here’s an example:
Please note that the direct observations, provided in the tables, were simply measurements of radioactivity. This is what I mean by empirical predictions made by scientific hypotheses. They didn’t tell anyone else that they had to demonstrate or describe anything. Nuremberg and Mattaei won the Nobel Prize for this work.
Just to be clear, they repeatedly tested hypotheses of the form “repeats of the nucleotide X encode for polypeptides that are repeats of the amino acid residue Y.” This makes the empirical prediction that when radioactive amino acid Y is the only radioactive amino acid in the mixture of all 20, the cpm measured in the product will be much higher.
No, science is how we learn how the system operates. By making and testing empirical predictions, we don’t have to pretend to know.
[quote]But why is it that those procedures are sufficient for writing textbooks and guiding research, yet suddenly insufficient when it comes the test. This is the equivocation you cannot hide.
[/quote]You clearly are not engaging the most basic idea, which is that you bake in all your assumptions and interpretations before you gather new data. Therefore you aren’t following the procedures that real scientists use for guiding research.
In the Nobel-winning example I presented, the empirical prediction of a clearly stated mechanistic hypothesis was simply higher cpm in the product of the in vitro translation reaction.
This method is what helps to prevent us from engaging in wishful thinking and post hoc rationalizations.
You clearly are not engaging the most basic idea, which is that you bake in all your assumptions and interpretations
Oh by all means, lay it out. Name them.
If you think your hypothesis is correct, YOU will bake in all your assumptions and interpretations into your mechanistic hypothesis so that the only thing coming out in the prediction is the direct observation or measurement.
The example I provided shows that very clearly. See if you can find anything in it that resembles your, “Alternatively, if you cannot demonstrate that the requirements are false, then you concede…” or “You must demonstrate that the above system…”
And these baked-in assumptions are so clear that you can name them, right?
So name them.
Does the aaRS establish the amino acid-to-anticodon association? What is the assumption in that? Is the arrangement of the bases in a codon independent of the minimum total potential energy state of mRNA? What’s the assumption?
Are we now at assumptions that may not be named?
Yes.
Here’s just one: “stop functions are necessary for proper translation.”