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Author Topic:   Abiogenesis
Doddy
Member (Idle past 5909 days)
Posts: 563
From: Brisbane, Australia
Joined: 01-04-2007


Message 5 of 305 (382670)
02-05-2007 6:27 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by kuresu
02-05-2007 11:19 AM


Then explain to me how it arose by the process of abiogenesis.
There are so, so many hypotheses that I couldn't tell you all of them. Do a little reading on the matter. The problem is that very little evidence is available to help support one hypothesis over another.
And, when dealing with genetic information, you don't have to assume that it started off on the same sort of media as we see now (any more than we'd assume that digital MP3s have always existed to store music, and neglect vinyl records as possible).
You don't necessarily need DNA or even RNA to have replication. For example, mad cow disease is caused by a prion (a replicating protein).
Another form of storage of information has been proposed by British biochemist Graham Cairns-Smith (as is mentioned in kurusu's wikipedia link). He suggest that clay crystals were the first form of biological information storage, until the organisms upgraded to nucleic acids.

"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by kuresu, posted 02-05-2007 11:19 AM kuresu has not replied

Doddy
Member (Idle past 5909 days)
Posts: 563
From: Brisbane, Australia
Joined: 01-04-2007


Message 15 of 305 (385428)
02-15-2007 4:45 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by lovefaithhope
02-15-2007 2:38 PM


Re: the seed is able to grow
Welcome to EvC!
lovefaithhope writes:
this is false for you say that we evolve into something while lacking the ability to become the evolved product.
This is a great example of "begging the question". You assume there is no way for the product to form, and use that to prove why the product can't form. You assume your own conclusion in order to prove your conclusion.

"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer
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Doddy
Member (Idle past 5909 days)
Posts: 563
From: Brisbane, Australia
Joined: 01-04-2007


Message 135 of 305 (395122)
04-15-2007 2:57 AM
Reply to: Message 123 by Rob
04-14-2007 8:41 PM


Re: Abiogenesis & encryption
Right, let's look at this definition of specified information.
quote:
Information at the simplest level is just meaningful text.
Look, we're using logical fallacies already. No, that won't do for a definition, because it 'begs the question'. It implies a meaning, and then we conclude that the information has a meaning so must be designed. But information does not have to mean anything. This is the popular definition of information, but it is very imprecise. Instead, one should use a precise definition, such as that of Shannon.
A better way to describe information is as a description of a state. So, GGGGGGGGG is a state, and '9 x G' is a description of that state. So, the information content of that state is quite low, due to the repeating nature of it. How about "GHYTIRKIM"? That state is itself the most reduced description, and so is essentially pure information. However, it contains no more information than the word "THEORISED", even though one means something to us (because of something we have assigned it, not because it contains more information).
quote:
And the order is specified, that’s point number two; which is to say that only one complex arrangement will do to operate the computer. If you got another one, you’ve got something that won’t work at all.
This is also false, depending on your definition of 'work'.
If by work you mean...say, the computer can browse an internet page encoded in HTML.
In that case, lots of codes will work. Some better than others, but Safari, Seamonkey, Firefox, Netscape, Opera and Internet Explorer can all read the same code.
This is because many parts of the code are simply junk. The coders don't have the best, most precise code - there certainly is repetition and junk in it. Often, you will find that key parts of it are the same, but in different spots.
An example in literature would be if an author wrote "It was a dark and stormy night" and another one wrote "That evening, there was a storm and it was difficult to see on account of the lack of light". Both have the same meaning, and serve the same purpose, but are in a different order. They have the same information too, but it shows that more than one code can do the same thing.
The reason is, the meaning we want to convey is contained in only a few parts of that code, and the rest just serve as grammar to hold it up. The meaning of 'Dark', 'Stormy' and 'night' can be conveyed by different sets of information in different orders.
quote:
So it’s specified complexity. And a third feature is called aperiodic, or non-repeating. And that means it’s not the result of physical or chemical laws, because those laws always produce simple repetitive patterns.
Well, if you look at those two sentences above, you will find they are in fact the result of the laws of grammar in English. There are only certain ways that phrases can be arranged to mean something, else it will violate a law of grammar. For example:
"Dark a stormy, and was, it night and that"
I have adjectives with no noun associated with them, a clause without a noun and another one without a verb, and a conjunction without a cause. If this sentence was a molecule, it wouldn't hold up!
quote:
For example, you can imagine a book that’s written this way: you put a macro on your computer processor that says reapeat the letters ABC until the printer runs out of paper. And you’d get a book like that, and it wouldn’t be a very interesting book. And it would never get more interesting because the same laws that give you that pattern, ensure that you’ll never get a different pattern, or a more meaningful one.
Consider the following example:
"Imagine a scribe working over a piece of literature - randomly assembled from a dictionary. Of course, it will be very small, perhaps only a dozen words in length. But this piece is copied by the scribe over, and over, and over. During this copying process, the scribe sometimes makes mistakes - maybe accidentally deleting or adding a word from the dictionary, or changing the order of a sentence, or even accidentally copying a phrase or clause one too many times. And every copy is heard by a group of critics, who ask for more copies of the pleasing works, and less of the unpleasant ones. The scribe does not add specific information to the book, having no knowledge of literature or grammar, but only random mistakes are added - still information, just not specified. The critics, on the other hand, know what good books sound like. Thus, during this process, the tastes of the critics are transferred to the book without them even editing it themselves."
As you can see, it is possible to create a meaningful pattern if the laws mark it unfavourable to be a non-meaningful pattern.
Evolution is the same: the environment and physical laws render it unfavourable for many forms of self-replication. Slow replicators are unfavourable, imprecise ones are unfavourable and non-replicators cannot be favoured at all. With this framework, and the laws of chemistry and physics, very effecient replicators can be formed via selection.
The information for evolution is in the laws of the universe - it is not a biologists job to explain why that information is there, only how it gets incorporated into the cell.
quote:
And without exception, in all of our experience, you never get anything like that unless you have an author. To get computer software, you have to have a software engineer. To have an encyclopedia you actually need a lot of different authors and editors. To get the plays of Shakespeare, you need Shakespeare.
Now this is a combination of two fallacies - begging the question and affirming the consequent.
Firstly, of course you need Shakespeare to get the works of Shakespeare - if someone else wrote it, it wouldn't be the work of shakespeare. Of course you need a software engineer to create software, they wouldn't be a software engineer if they didn't create software.
Secondly, affirming the consequent:
1. If A, then B.
2. B
3. Thus, A.
For example:
1. If there's smoke, there's fire.
2. Fire.
3. Thus, smoke.
But fires are possible without smoke.
1. If there's at least one intelligent agent, there will be a information created.
2. There is information created.
3. So, there is at lease one intelligent agent.
But, perhaps it is also possible to create information without an agent? We can't rule it out, especially because we can see information without an obvious agent.

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Doddy
Member (Idle past 5909 days)
Posts: 563
From: Brisbane, Australia
Joined: 01-04-2007


Message 136 of 305 (395123)
04-15-2007 3:14 AM
Reply to: Message 132 by Rob
04-15-2007 1:04 AM


Re: Abiogenesis & encryption
Rob writes:
In one area we are talking definition. In the other we are talking about purpose.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Rob writes:
The purpose is simply part of the definition.
Nope, can't agree with that.
Purpose is intelligence. Purpose is something we, as intelligent agents, assign to things. There is no purpose in the universe without us.
But, you may say, is not the purpose of a lac inhibitor protein to inhibit transcription of the lac operon? Is not the purpose of a neuron to convey action potentials? Is not the purpose of the strong nuclear force to hold electrons together? Is not the purpose of the sun rising to give light and energy to the life of the earth?
The answer is, no. That's what they do, that is not the purpose. It is the 'what' and 'how', not the 'why'. The purpose of a bike is for someone to ride it, but what it does is transfer kinetic energy.
This can be hard to understand, because our brains operate based upon purposes, but consider that the purpose of an object is not actually 'real' in the sense that mass and energy are real, but implied by us.
Consider the scenario mentioned by Richard Dawkins in his book, Climbing Mount Improbable. He asked his daughter, I think it was, what the purpose of a flower was. Her answer was along the lines of "To look pretty and give the bees something to eat". Now, Richard was at the time I believe thinking along the lines of flowering being a good survival strategy for the plant's genes. But neither are in fact true. Plants do not flower for a purpose. There is no answer to 'Why do plants flower?'. There is an answer to "How do plants flower?", and "What is flowering?" and "What uses are there for flowers?" and even "How did flowering evolve?", but not to why. There was no intelligence involved in the flowering process, and so any purpose is only implied by intelligence in retrospect. As evident in that Dawkins initially implied a different purpose to flowering than his daughter did - why would that be, if purpose was as obvious as mass or energy?
Edited by Doddy, : grammar

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 132 by Rob, posted 04-15-2007 1:04 AM Rob has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 138 by Rob, posted 04-15-2007 10:44 AM Doddy has not replied
 Message 159 by fallacycop, posted 04-15-2007 9:35 PM Doddy has replied

Doddy
Member (Idle past 5909 days)
Posts: 563
From: Brisbane, Australia
Joined: 01-04-2007


Message 158 of 305 (395267)
04-15-2007 9:03 PM
Reply to: Message 154 by kuresu
04-15-2007 5:34 PM


Re: Abiogenesis & encryption
excuse me, but DNA isn't digital. that's the biggest flaw with your description of "Genetic encryption". DNA is physical, it's an analog method of storing information (crude analogy that it is).
That depends on your definition, I fear. Let me define what I think the two terms mean:
Digital - storage of information in discrete 'bits'
Analog - storage of information in a continuous form
By those definitions, DNA is digital. However, most things we consider digital feature electronic or optical storage and numerically binary data. DNA does not, but I do no believe that prevents it from being labelled as digital rather than analog.
The other flaw is that DNA is not encrypted by one nucleic acid and translated by another. You do know what nucleic acid is, right?
No, it is encrypted by evolution and translated by tRNA and ribosomes, which evolved along with the encryption. After all, if something can't encrypt its data accurately, or translate it again, it will die. So of course, encryption mechanisms can evolve.
A good example of this is the change in the encryption in the mitochondria of vertebrates and some fungi, where the RNA codon AUA codes for the amino acid methionine, rather than isoleucine as it does in the cellular ribosomes of all other species (apart from the Micrococcus genus, where it is a stop codon). The genetic code is far from universal, and undergoes evolution because of mutations and selection just like everything else.
If you're interested, see if you can pick up this classic paper (note the author!): F.H.C. Crick, "The origin of the genetic code." J. Mol. Biol. 38 (1968), pp. 367-379.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 154 by kuresu, posted 04-15-2007 5:34 PM kuresu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 161 by kuresu, posted 04-15-2007 10:37 PM Doddy has not replied
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Doddy
Member (Idle past 5909 days)
Posts: 563
From: Brisbane, Australia
Joined: 01-04-2007


Message 166 of 305 (395376)
04-16-2007 6:38 AM
Reply to: Message 159 by fallacycop
04-15-2007 9:35 PM


Re: Nitpick
electrons are not held by the strong force. They are held by the electromagnetic force. May be you meant quarks?
Lol. I didn't even see that.
Yes, of course. I'm not very good at physics. I had actually intended to find out what force held electrons together, but forgot to change that when I decided to opt for the strong force instead.

Help inform the masses - contribute to the EvoWiki today!
Contributors needed in the following fields: Physical Anthropology, Invertebrate Biology (esp. Lepidopterology), Biochemistry, Population Genetics, Scientific Illustration, Scientific History, Philosophy of Science, Logic and others. Researchers also wanted to source creationist literature references. Register here!

This message is a reply to:
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Doddy
Member (Idle past 5909 days)
Posts: 563
From: Brisbane, Australia
Joined: 01-04-2007


Message 207 of 305 (396583)
04-21-2007 12:01 AM
Reply to: Message 206 by AZPaul3
04-20-2007 8:01 PM


Re: Stirring the Soup
Although some metaphysical poofery cannot be said to be impossible (since we cannot prove a negative) there are approximately 0 data points in its favor.
Then how do you know we can't? Basically, it is a negative: X cannot be said to be impossible. Insert "proof of a negative" in for X, and you disprove the premise of the argument. Disappears in a puff of logic.
But in a world already full of life, expecting such a process to cycle un-eaten through the millennia it takes to develop the most moderate complexity is not just unreasonable it is ludicrous.
Not to mention it may not resemble the organics we look for in what we call 'life', so we may not be looking for the right things.

Help inform the masses - contribute to the EvoWiki today!
Contributors needed in the following fields: Physical Anthropology, Invertebrate Biology (esp. Lepidopterology), Biochemistry, Population Genetics, Scientific Illustration, Scientific History, Philosophy of Science, Logic and others. Researchers also wanted to source creationist literature references. Register here!

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