The Minimal Genome Project: "Here we report a new cell"

[Biosemiosis.org]

Hello Nuno,

Good to talk again. Allow me to respond. Here are the first two sentences in your comment:

1. The search for a minimal functional cell is an exciting feat of bioengineering but is not necessarily that informative about how life came about to begin with.

2. And it is also not a very useful argument to make in defense of ID.

Both of these sentences are purely positioning statements. The first says “I grant you that this is good work, but it doesn’t mean anything to this topic” and the second says “it is safe to ignore arguments in favor of design”. Neither of these has any particular substance, they merely serve to soften the territory.

This is your third sentence:

3. As far as I can tell it is similar to the arguments that if you take proteins apart one amino acid at a time then at some point it will lose its function so voilá, whatever X amino acids are left must have been designed because there’s a 20^X probability of them coming “into being by naught”.

This is a mis-characterization of the argument. If I start removing parts from your computer, at some point it will fail. I am not arguing that your computer is designed because of the low probability that all these parts came together by themselves. That is an argument unto itself. Instead, I am arguing that physicists have analyzed the workings of your computer and they find that the core physical system (that causes your computer to function) can be exclusively identified among all other systems in the physical universe. And the only other source of this system is found in recorded language and mathematics – two unambiguous correlates of intelligence. This is a physical fact that is to be either acknowledged or denied.

Whatever minimal cell JCVI comes up with is highly unlikely to resemble the first cell on earth…

This is the statement you need to sell. You must realize that your position is merely an un-testable assumption – made against all physical evidence to the contrary, as well as reasoned logic. The information processing of the extant cell is precisely what must be achieved, and Craig Venter knows it. Here is my counter:

The minimum requirement for the origin of the system is established by what is physically necessary to record and translate the amount of information that the system needs to successfully describe itself into transcribable memory.

I hinted at this in the closing comments of the article. At what point can you remove the capacity to translate the information in the genome from the information in the genome? Logic says “never”. The Venter team doesn’t even attempt to, because they realize it leads to immediate non-viability. The reductionist says “believe me, no problem”.

[fmiddel]

@Biosemiosis.org

I think you might be too smart for me. I don’t follow the gap in your reasoning.[/quote]

My point was that ID seems to end further inquiry. An end to science.

[quote]I think you might have missed the salient point. No one will ever demonstrate what happened in the deep unobservable past, because its not possible to do so.

It then follows that the inability to demonstrate a thing that cannot be demonstrated is not an actual criteria for conducting science. You may have even heard someone say “Science is not in the business of proofs”.

So again, forgive me, I am not certain what the point of your comment was.

“Unobservable” past? What’s the difference between the “observable past” and “unobservable past”? Or is all the past unobservable?

[fmiddel]

@beaglelady

ID people can be young earth OR old earth. The idea is that ID is a “big tent,” so they have no interest in resolving the age of the earth.

I know it can be. My assumption was that most ID’ers were old earth.

[Biosemiosis.org]

@fmiddel

My point was that ID seems to end further inquiry. An end to science.

Well… That’s rather an insult to every theist who gets up every morning and goes to work at a research hospital trying to find a cure for cancer – but I just wonder what the basis of the comment is? On what grounds does believing that reductionism is false mean we stop trying to do science?

[fmiddel]

@Biosemiosis.org

Well… That’s rather an insult to every theist who gets up every morning and goes to work at a research hospital trying to find a cure for cancer – but I just wonder what the basis of the comment is? On what grounds does believing that reductionism is false mean we stop trying to do science?

Okay, to be more precise, scientific inquiry into origins. I’m not happy with throwing up our hands and saying “we just can’t know so let’s stop looking.” There are all kinds of things that have appeared opaque in the past that have been revealed to be less than opaque, scientifically speaking. I believe that the “deep past” is one of those areas.

[Biosemiosis.org]

So… a) believing that reductionism is false isn’t an “end to science”. We can go on to cure cancer, better recycle our waste, sustain ourselves, and so on. And b) not being able to prove something that cannot be proven is also not an end to science. The value of evidence is remains. As for origins, those who maintain that reductionism is false will still have universal evidence in their favor and retain a properly-falsifiable scientific proposition, while those who believe in reductionism will continue to seek actual evidence of its validity.

An end to the culture war and a return to balance and rationality seems like a rather good idea.

This is the point I was making in the Link I offered to you earlier.

[Biosemiosis.org]

@Eddie

More attacks have been made on BioLogos against Michael Behe than against Ken Ham. Go figure.

Probably because Behe’s major contributions to the debate have been demonstrated empirically, and he is ID, and thus a threat.

– by the way, thank you for the contributions. All I could do is ignore George’s irrational screed…

[Biosemiosis.org]

I also note that George failed to answer the question that could have al least given him the appearance of having some sense of fair-handedness:

Let me ask you a straight up question. The semiotic encoding of DNA can be unambiguously identified through physics. It can be identified to the exclusion of all other physical systems in the cosmos. The only other place that such a system can be identified is in language and mathematics – two unambiguous correlates of intelligence. Is the semiotic encoding of DNA evidence of design in biology?

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Eddie

What do you mean by “opposing YEC”? Do you mean, issuing formal statements that YEC is dumb religion and lousy science and that YEC should be utterly rejected? It’s true that not many ID people have done that.

@Eddie,

Yes that’s what I mean. “Not many” ? Probably none.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Eddie

That’s a million-dollar question to which many would like an answer, since there are ID proponents who fit that description, but are treated by BioLogos columnists as if they were YECs. More attacks have been made on BioLogos against Michael Behe than against Ken Ham. Go figure.

@Eddie,

Let’s flesh out that list. You say there are ID proponents who fit that description.

Don’t you really mean there is “almost one” ? or maybe JUST one?

If it were 2 … it’s enough for most BioLogos and Theistic Evolutionists to be highly suspicious of the ID camp, don’t you think?

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Biosemiosis.org

Probably because Behe’s major contributions to the debate have been demonstrated empirically, and he is ID, and thus a threat.

– by the way, thank you for the contributions. All I could do is ignore George’s irrational screed…

@Biosemiosis.org… if my comments had been an irrational screed, @Eddie would have gleefully described it as such. Your rhetoric is over the top, Bio.

So are you saying that Behe is an “Old Earther” ? What would you cite to demonstrate his position?

@Eddie, I think Bio is going to have problems with this … maybe you can provide us the necessary citation? I want to explore Behe more … if he justifies the exploration.

[Biosemiosis.org]

@gbrooks9

if my comments had been an irrational screed

You propose:

ID is an intentional ploy by YEC’s to try to distance themselves from Creationism, while they undermine god-less scientists.

[Biosemiosis.org]

@gbrooks9

So are you saying that Behe is an “Old Earther” ? What would you cite to demonstrate his position?

“Evolution is a controversial topic, so it is necessary to address a few basic questions at the beginning of the book. Many people think that questioning Darwinian evolution must be equivalent to espousing creationism. As commonly understood, creationism involves belief in an earth formed only about ten thousand years ago, an interpretation of the Bible that is still very popular. For the record, I have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say it is.” --Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, page 5

Of course, this will not faze you one bit.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Biosemiosis.org

ID is an intentional ploy by YEC’s to try to distance themselves from Creationism, while they undermine god-less scientists.

This is hardly irrational. Read the Judge’s response to even Behe’s testimony on the subject. Even the supposedly objective Behe was willing to ‘pimp’ for a religious University:

“In August 2008, Judge S. James Otero rejected Behe’s claims, saying that Behe “submitted a declaration concluding that the BJU [Bob Jones University Press] text mentions standard scientific content. … However, Professor Behe ‘did not consider how much detail or depth’ the texts gave to this standard content.”[59] Otero ruled in favor of the University of California’s decision to reject courses using these books.”

FOOTNOTES:
“Order Granting Defendants’ ‘Motion for Summary Judgment on As-Applied Claims’” (PDF). August 8, 2008. Retrieved 2014-01-30. United States District Court for the Central District of California: Association of Christian Schools International v. Roman Stearns, Document No. CV 05-06242 SJO (MANx); Docket No. 172.

Gupta, Rani (August 8, 2008). “MURRIETA: Judge throws out religious discrimination suit”. The Californian (Temecula, CA). Archived from the original on 2008-08-15. Retrieved 2014-01-30.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Biosemiosis.org

For the record, I have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say it is."

@Biosemiosis.org

That is a cunning quote for sure … he speaks of the age of the UNIVERSE … while he completely avoids stating how old the EARTH is within it … That’s high school stuff…