Does complexity require intelligent design?

The nucleotides are the materials that DNa and RNA are composed of, and determine which proteins are catalyzed, yes, but it is not a random process. It is predetermined which proteins will be formed by which sequence.

No prob, exevo. I can see that you've got a lot on your plate. However, as extinction is one of my primary interest areas, when you are done with this thread let me know and we can start a new one on that topic.

Hm? How do you figure? All science is about making inferences from evidence. We have rules about how that inference is to proceed, and what degree of confidence we're to place on those inferences, but I don't recall ever saying that inference was invalid in any particular situation. You mean, this?This isn't "information"; this is essentially an arbitrary table that describes how almost every organism associates amino acids and tRNA sequences. Not so. A mutation might take an unwanted sequence and change it to develop a more useful product. Or a mutation might exchange one desireable component for an equally desirable one. Remember, too, that in a diploid organism, you have two versions of every gene, so a mutation in one is not going to affect the other. Functional proteins might be even further backed up by redundancy. So a mutation could easily provide new protein products without interfering with old ones.Moreover you can make even substantial changes to the end-result polypeptide with usually little change to its function. Plenty of example exist; some have even been given to you.

Well thats a subjective matter, it seems pretty significantly stronger than normal to me. True but irrelevant, I wasn't citing it as an example of a random beneficial mutation. I was citing it as an example of a mutation conferring 'super strength' which was what you asked for, you are the one assuming that 'super strength' will be a beneficial trait.TTFN,WK

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Random mutation is creative? Now that's silly. Ask a musical composer if it wouldn't be better to just put random notes on the score, or ask an architect if it wouldn't be better to just add walls or windows in a random way. What design process uses random factors as a primary creative function? {I don't consider rap "music" to be a valid example}

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Neural Networks.As to your comments about music, do a google search on neural networks music art. Then if you like do another on "neural networks architecture.Neural Networks are only one example. Medicine Ogg Ogg, you over there eat this. Let’s see what happens. I still often cook this way. When I play with computer art I often try random effects or tools.You used ‘better’ when I think you mean ‘efficient’. Randomness may not be the most efficient approach if you have a time limit, but what if you have eons?I am really disappointed that you say Crash is saying that ‘mutation’ = ‘creative’ when he clearly wrote Natural selection acting on random mutation I am sure this has been brought up before.

Still waiting for a reply to Message 202. Whan combined with selection, absolutely. It's downright dishonest to claim to understand evolution and then characterize it as you do, ignoring selection. Ignoring the effect of selection, therefore not germane. Oh, there are literally thousands of examples. Just a few:Antenna design (e.g. Unnatural Selection, Genetic Hybrid Antenna Fills the Gap).Web page layout (Not-So-Mad Science: Genetic Algorithms and Web Page Design for Marketers).Scheduling (buses, the Traveling Salesman problem, ...) (e.g. Genetic Algorithms vs. Blind Search, Resource Scheduling with Distributed Genetic Objects).Electronic circuit desing (CREATURES FROM PRIMORDIAL SILICON, Radio emerges from the electronic soup, An evolved cirduit, intrinsic in silicon, entwined with physics).A list of several more: Some specific examples of GAs.

XEvo, This looks like you’ve accepted that mutation could increase ‘information’ in a genome via duplication events, but don’t want to believe it .There are a number of things to remember about the effects of duplication: Remember, the mechanism I am describing here is duplication followed by diversification so you’re not looking for distinct phenotypic changes after the first copying event, and the mutations that follow don’t have to be that drastic at first.I think this is what P.S. is pointing out when talking about redundancy. Teleost fishes are great examples of where duplication has made a large number of similar genes with overlapping functions. Another example is where knocking out genes in mice leads to less severe phenotypes than expected — because related genes haven’t fully diversified. The infamous Hox genes are a great example of a wide variety of different functions being derived from a series of obvious duplication events. It’s either that or the designer has gone out of his way to make it look that way!On a simpler, less developmental note: the evolution of a single chain globin into a more complex four chain protein can be explained purely by duplication folowed by diversification. No designer needed.So exactly where is a designer needed during evolution? Where is the design/evolve cut-off point?If it is only to supply the ‘universal’ code (as you seem to be implying in other posts) then that’s leaving an awful lot of information building to random mutation and natural selection. And of course doesn't escape the question of whether the code could have evolved itself...but I suspect that might be a different topic

OK..?? I maintain that the fossil record does not support such claims. Most of the examples given me in this thread have largely consisted of jaw fragments. I spent two hours looking for some type of evidence that would support one earlier claim and found nothing but drawings and one jaw fragment. This was evidence of progression from a animal without horns into a completely different species with horns. If there exist actual fossilized remains, the location of them is a secret. I was referring to actual mutations, not splicing, and recombinations. I should have been more specific.You asked for an example of a scientist whose research led him in another direction, I provided :"...The information contained in the simplest of life forms is so complex that it led Sir Fred Hoyle to conclude that life could not have risen by chance on this planet..."You replied: Sir Fred Hoyle, a world-renowned astronomer, is acknowledged to be one of the most creative scientists of the 20th century. He has held the position of Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University, and was also the founder of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge
He is best known for his seminal contributions to the theory of the structure of stars and on the origin of the chemical elements in stars.
Fred Hoyle's work on nucleosynthesis in collaboration with William A. Fowler and Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge led to our present-day understanding of the origin of chemical elements in stars. It was Fred Hoyle's original prediction of the presence of an excited state of the nucleus of the atom carbon via his studies of the structure and evolution of stars that heralded a long and profitable collaboration with Caltech nuclear physicist Willy Fowler.Apparently, Sir Hoyle did not believe in ID, but he prety convincingly, in my estimate, disproved abiogenesis on this planet with the laws of nature as we understand them. If accidental, or spontaneous, formation of life is impossible, what other options are left?
Hoyle claimed that the protein histone-4 could never be produced in small steps. Why? Histone-4 has a chain of 102 amino acids and the structure is extremely conserved in all eukaryote species . Bovine histone-4 differs in only 2 positions with peas! And that means extreme functional constraints must exist . Histones are necessary for chromosome condensation during cell division. The traditional neo-Darwinian step-by-step method must fail claimed Hoyle, because it implies 100 non-functional steps. The alternative: a jump of 100 mutations of exactly the right kind would be highly improbable. So improbable that it was on the order of 10 to the 100th power, or that it woldn't be possible in 100 billion years. Where have we ever seen spontaneous formation of any life form? The evidence all around us is that life is resistant to change, not prone to it.

Why, you're absolutely right! Now that I look, I see that all human beings are identical twins of each other! We're all clones, identical in every way! How come I didn't see it before?Oh, wait. Sorry to be sarcastic, but the overwhelming condition of life is variety and variation, not resistance to change. It's insane to assert the contrary.

The subject I was referring to originally, concerned the spontaneous formation of life on this planet. I was thinking about possible environments and combinations of chemicals that would have been present on earth 3-4 billion years ago. Specifically, I had in mind the Miller- Urey experiments, not that we could create any scenario, just any reasonable scenario.

It's not really chance if you preselect the material components and the other parameters. That sounded like a very groundbreaking experiment, but I would like to know a lot more, like how well it actually functions and what if components having nothing to do with electonics were mixed in, and how it differs from designs already in use? Is it as good or better? Kinda sounds like a parlor trick to me. I took a look and didn't really see any specs, which I would expect in an experiment like that.

It's been answered, by claims like Sylas' that had no provenance. As to gene duplication, which he mentions in his discourse, I suggest you do a search and compare the undesirable examples {many given} with the beneficial ones { I couldn't find any}.

It isn't a "tactic". I actually didn't see any on all the sites I looked at concerning gene duplication. Lots of them said it had to be possible, but they weren't offering examples. And I wasn't offering proof that it was impossible, just stating that reality shows it very unlikely to occur in the frequency needed for the formation of complex cells, much less living organisms.

It was good enough for the Webster's dictionary I used, but I doubt any definition I give will satisfy you.

Went to the article and yes it certainly appears that this poor kid has extraordinary strength. I grew up in the days when we had to carry water and the kids that couldn't keep up, but nothing like that. It would be great if that led to a treatment for MD as the article suggested might be possible.