From: Josh Bembenek (jbembe@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Aug 03 2003 - 12:26:58 EDT
Glenn,
"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."
-My wife often tells me things that are unpublished. Does that make her
statements not a part of the real world?
"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."
-Here, you've simply dogmatically declared the answer to the question
without reference to any mechanism. This won't do.
"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."
-You've been hammering away at an unknown gobbledygook message you generated
and demanding someone decode them using a CSI technique. Fine, I concede
that there are limitations to Dembski's tool. However, since you have
acknowledged that we can identify biological specifications, we don't have
to ever worry about applying the technique to unknown sequences in order to
determine if biological information requires ID for its derivation. If
Dembski wants to get involved in SETI, he's going to have to get better at
finding specifications.
"J: The question isn't whether targets are specified, or whether arrows have
hit a certain mark.
G: Someone had better tell Dembski this. Arrows hitting the mark is his
analogy. I am glad that we agree on something other than movies."
-Did you understand that I am saying that because we already know this is
true for biology?
"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."
-This is part of your carefully placed wager. Someone who disagrees with
you will cite several other articles, perhaps showing the impossibility of
RNA being a stable biomolecule synthesized by any "chemical soup."
Regardless (I don't want to argue this at length because it is tangiential),
the work you cite supports your position, it does not prove it. If so, the
debate would be over.
"J: The problem you have is that you are, discussing these issues on a
purely philosophical, theological, and mathematical (and gobbledygook)
level.
G: 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."
-Certaintly, but a good strawman technique is to argue about a particular
component of someone's claim completely divorced from the entirety of their
argument, and then show how wrong that one component is when applied to a
context not intended within the original argument.
"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."
Glenn, my entire email reply was involved in answering the following
question:
"Which of the sequences:
woxianzhegetuyiyang
xianwotuyiyangzhege
amhuinnsuidhe
dallenbaloch
thaancumorachthaancatbeag
ciamarathasibh
is designed?
Your *sequences* are gobbledygook, and your argument is valid for
unspecified sequences (I was not trying to suggest that everything you say
is bananas, as you have done toward others.) However, your argument is
demonstrating the limits of application for the ID analysis, not the
complete futility of it.
"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?"
-Yes, I don't ever remember claiming that ID has proved its case. To remind
you, my definition of "bananas" was: "credible hypothesis useful in
describing natural and perhaps unnatural phenomena." I never said proof
either in discussing things with you, Howard, or whomever! I've even said
to Howard that even if ID is comletely wrong, they will be useful as far as
pointing us to areas of our understanding that require better explanation.
This is a long way off from defending the "proof" of ID.
"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."
-I can't see the link at home, you'll have to give me time to review it,
thanks for the reference.
"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"
-Sounds interesting. Looking forward to your article.
"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."
RNA molecules with function are a loooooong way off from generating the
proteome or even the ORFeome if you will (perhaps Wayne will have some
comments here since I learned that he is working on predicting the three
dimensional structure of RNAs.) Promising leads do not constitute a general
solution, but then this particular subset of our discussion clearly reveals
our personal biases and shows why we tend toward different sides of the
debate. Maybe if I was more "optimistic" using Terry Gray's description of
Behe's position from personal communication at the ASA meeting, I'd see
things your way more. I must be a hopeless pessimist (although in my mind,
I surely must be a REALIST.)
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