RE: [asa] Molecular Biology and Design

David C. said:
"Bernie has a very valid question. But as far as I know, and I get this from my biochem books, molecular biology is based quite a bit on probability calculations. "

That's a lot different. In the case of my question, I'm saying probability and statistics is not important when dealing with cosmological infinity. For example, if the probability is 1 in billion, what does that matter when dealing with infinity? You could still have infinite occurrences. A low probability means absolutely nothing when dealing with infinity.

However, in molecular biology, you aren't dealing with infinities, but with gene mutations (some assumptions based in accordance with some data) over a finite time.

Nucacids said:
"And molecular biology was institutionalized when scientists imported engineering concepts into biology."

Also, as far as engineering invading biology- that's sounds like compartmentalist thinking. There really is no compartment of engineering and another of biology. Engineering invades everything, just like computer programming. It is more a matter of increasing knowledge overlapping many fields of study. Engineering is really just applied science.

When did this happen? "scientists imported engineering concepts into biology"

I see it just as a maturing of science. It happened as soon as the knowledge was available. Until the knowledge was available, it didn't happen. Some day people will be able to design their own organisms by directly manipulating dna code on a computer and simulating the life-form before it is even real (like we do with computer chip designs today- simulating products and testing them before they are even built). This is not a matter of waiting for the day for software engineers and biochemists to do it- is a matter of getting the information to do such a thing. So I don't think it is a case of scientists saying "Hey, we should import some engineering concepts into biology." It just happens naturally as the data is available. We probably all agree to that, so sorry for going on-and-on...

...Bernie

________________________________
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of David Clounch
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 3:18 PM
To: Nucacids
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Molecular Biology and Design

Mike,
I wasn't questioning your statements. Just asking (sort of tongue-in-cheek) for clarification wherever it may be available.

You see, when I am in a state science standards committee, and someone stands up and says that another person's testimony is invalid and must be ignored because that person is "only an engineer" then I think the process of government is being gerrymandered.
Nevermind that the critic herself has a degree, not in science, but in "science education", and the subject of the criticism [the alleged engineer] has published over 300 scientific papers and is a polymer chemist who gives his grad students assignments on polymer formation as part of a hypothetical abiogenesis process on a hypothetical primitive earth.

So, my guess is its very relevant to public policy whether engineers do or don't have something to valid to say in their fields of expertise.

Also, please let me quote from another thread:

Bernie replied: > Why is that important, when you have universes
constantly popping into existence, the vast majority of them being
non-viable? If this has been going on forever (new universes
constantly being produced), why is probability important or even
considered? If you get a fraction of universes viable from an almost
infinite set, that's a lot of universes!<

Bernie has a very valid question. But as far as I know, and I get this from my biochem books, molecular biology is based quite a bit on probability calculations.

One book discusses why we think, for example, that two organism are related based on coding for producing a certain protein sequence. Some sequences are so unlikely to have arisen in two places independently that scientists assume there was only one origin, but that 60 million years later the coding was inherited by two otherwise unrelated lineages that we now know were descended from that common organism. Thus they look for common descent. And that is quite reasonable. Its one of the main reasons to believe in common descent (and to believe in evolution). But if probability is an insufficent basis for the assumption (because an infinite number of trials produces an infinite sample set) there is no reason to believe in the connection between the organisms.

 So, I agree, the molecular clock idea is kind of important to the science.

Now, to be fair to Bernie (or anyone), the sample set within one universe is not the same as all the samples in all the universes, unless one evalulates the partition functions. One needs to look at the Boltzmann factor for an infinite set of universes that contains various distributions of universes that contain life. I don't know how to do that. BUT someone who wants to draw a conclusion about the worthlessness of the probabilities had best do the calculations on a model with a set of proposed ensembles.
I think that needs to be done formally.

Meanwhile we have probability in our one known universe. Molecular biology works here - and the question is whether probabilistic concepts work here. I think they certainly do.

Best Regards,
David Clounch

On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 3:57 PM, Nucacids <nucacids@wowway.com<mailto:nucacids@wowway.com>> wrote:

Hi Dave,

You ask, "Are you saying that chemical engineers (and polymer chemists) actually have something to say about biology?"

I don't know enough about chemical engineers or polymer chemists to say. But I am saying what I said.

1. Biology is one of the most rapidly advancing sciences right now largely because of molecular biology.

I'm not sure anyone can deny this.

2. And molecular biology was institutionalized when scientists imported engineering concepts into biology.

This seems solid to me. I illustrated this in two ways. First, I conveyed how a mainstream molecular biologist would describe protein synthesis. Second, I quoted from Lewontin, who noted that some of the most pivotal experiments/papers in the history of molecular biology "would have been conceptually impossible without the metaphor of the code."

3. I also noted that molecular biology, with its embedded engineering concepts, has been transforming our understanding of developmental biology and evolution in ways that are very friendly to front-loading.

-Mike
Biology is one of the most rapidly advancing sciences right now largely because of molecular biology. And molecular biology was institutionalized when scientists imported engineering concepts into biology.

See: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/molecular-biology/

Mike,

Are you saying that chemical engineers (and polymer chemists) actually have something to say about biology?

-Dave

PS.
There's a related article mentioned:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-mani/

I think one could start reading this stanford site and not come up for air for a long long time.

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Received on Thu Jan 1 14:14:02 2009