From: Glenn Morton (glennmorton@entouch.net)
Date: Sun Aug 03 2003 - 11:19:46 EDT
Hi Josh,
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Josh Bembenek [mailto:jbembe@hotmail.com]
>Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2003 1:10 AM
>Glenn, the best I can say is that yes, everything your talking about is
>bananas. However, ID in the real world, advocated by Dembski et
>al, is not
>bananas (unless you think bananas means credible hypothesis useful in
>describing natural and perhaps unnatural phenomena.)
If ID is in the real world, can you point me to one article in a scientific
journal which makes use of CSI to infer design? Just one. That is all I
ask.
>
>The problem with your errant thinking has to do with
>specification. I don't
>care one bit about how many clever ways you can encode messages,
>we've been
>over all of this before on this listserve several months ago at great
>exhaustive length. Specification is no issue at all in biology, have you
>ever heard of a consensus sequence, or an amino acid motif?
Specificity, is like semantical meaning. It is only of value in a given
context. 'Gift' is a very special thing in the English language. But in
German, you don't want one, thank you very much. It means 'poison'.
Similarly, biological specificity is nothing more or less than the three
dimensional fit of two molecules. (See Lowestein, The Touchstone of LIfe,
pp.61-78). Such fits can be evolved via trial and error.
Try
>this, tell
>me whether the following is specified:
>
>Hckaglgr
I don't see the point. I acknowledge specificity what I don't acknowledge
is that one can take an unknown sequence and tell me whether or not it is
specified, or designed.
snip
>The question isn't whether targets are specified, or whether
>arrows have hit
>a certain mark.
Someone had better tell Dembski this. Arrows hitting the mark is his
analogy. I am glad that we agree on something other than movies.
The real issue is how big exactly is the bulls eye? The
>real issue has to do with protein function, not the gobbledygook language
>you entertain yourself with.
I will agree partly with this. And I would cite the work of Gerald Joyce,
Jack Szotak and others in the field of RNA synthesis. They are finding that
if they want to evolve RNA to perform a particular function, they can take a
vat of random RNAs, holding 10^13 or 10^14 RNAs and find a molecule which
will perform whatever function they want. That means that the target is not
10^-150, but 10^-13. That means that if you allow the creation of one RNA
molecule every second, it would only take 317,000 years to find a solution.
These vats are able to purify highly efficient RNA enzymes within a few
months. The tarket is quite big. Remember, one doesn't have to have a
system like man appear instantly 4.5 billion years ago. One only needs
something small like M. genitalium which has only 480 genes. There very
well might be an even smaller possible organism. Thus, the target is big,
much bigger than the hype of ID allows.
The problem you have is that you are
>discussing these issues on a purely philosophical, theological, and
>mathematical (and gobbledygook) level.
In case you haven't noticed, Dembski claims mathematics is part of ID. Thus
it is absolutely fair game to go after him there. He also used philosophy
(very poorly I might add after that comment of his that water was a
property) and he uses theology in his articles. So, yes, I have been
speaking along those lines. But then, so is the person whose work I am
criticising right now. That makes it appropriate.
Always being interested in knowing where I might be wrong, exactly what do
you think is 'gobbledygook'? Please be specific. Answers like 'everything
you say' are not helpful.. If you present good evidence that I am wrong, I
will listen and then thank you.
Once details of protein
>function are
>clarified, all of this discussion will dissolve because the issue will be
>settled. That's why I post articles on allosteric interactions within
>proteins, Hsp90, and genome-wide deletion analysis papers. This is where
>the real action is. ID and theistic evolution debate because this
>issue is
>unsolved and sidelines observers create a big fuss trying to interpret the
>incomplete data set and conclusively demonstrate that it best
>supports their
>general Worldview position before it's best to do so.
By admitting that the issue is 'unsolved' aren't you admitting that ID
really hasn't proven its case???? After all, if ID could determine design
through specificity, the issue wouldn't be 'unsolved', now would it?
And I am not entirely a sideline observer to this issue, see Simons and
Morton, 2003 "The Gene-Orientation Structure of Eukaryotes," Journal of
Theoretical Biology, 222:4:471-475.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WMD-486G5WH-2&_us
er=10&_handle=W-WA-A-A-VC-MsSAYZA-UUW-AUCUVDBAEZ-AEDZBBCEU-VC-U&_fmt=summary
&_coverDate=03%2F22%2F2003&_rdoc=27&_orig=browse&_srch=%23toc%236932%239999%
23999999999%2399999!&_cdi=6932&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersio
n=0&_userid=10&md5=91c55fbd195cad73b416f79364c90c86
Above, you said what I was saying was 'bananas'. I presume you are using my
definition of 'bananas'. I always think what is fair for the goose is good
for the gander, thus you have a right to make that claim. But I would
respond that at least I have one article in the real scientific literature.
Does ID????? I don't think so.
The interesting thing we have found during the work towards that article
was that higher level organisms have a higher level of randimization in
their gene structure. This will be outlined in Morton and Simons, "Random
Worms", PSCF Sept 2003
The safest thing to
>do now is place your wager and await affirmation. When a general solution
>is better understood, all this debate will be put to rest because we will
>know how proteins have been specified and what degree of CSI they actually
>contain.
We already see the general solution, from Szotak, Joyce and others but ID
doesn't ever discuss the significance of that work to their issue. It is
simply wishful thinking to know think this debate will go away--ever. It is
fundamentally unknowable and that is why it will never be settled.
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