On Thu, 10 Jul 1997 21:53:30 -0400, Pim van Meurs wrote:
[...]
>PM>That is a poor method based upon the idea of design which has
>already been shown circular. You observe complexity and assume it
>has to be specified and therefore it requires a designer. Highly
>circular.
>SJ>No. I "observe" *specified* "complexity and assume
>it...requires a designer". It really is "specified", in the sense
>that the genetic code in DNA specifies via RNA to cellular
>protein-enzyme systems to make a specific amino acid:
PM>But you conclude from this 'specifying' that there is the need
>for an intelligent to perform this specifying. You observe a
>complexity in which there is an organization of functions.
I "observe a complexity in which there is" *a very special*
"organization of functions", the like of which we can barely imagine,
let alone emulate, comprising fully miniaturised Von Neumann machines
of fantastic organised complexity, directed by an error-checked
digital code, and which can completely replicate themselves.
Von Neuman has recognised that the cell contains all the necessary
components of an abstract von Neumann machine, a self-replicating
automata:
"It is not only biochemists who have difficulty in envisaging the
design of a simple self-replicating system. Eminent engineers and
mathematicians, such as von Neumann, who have considered
theoretically the general abstract design of self-replicating
automata have shown that any automaton sufficiently complex to
reproduce itself would necessarily possess certain component systems
which are strictly analogous to those found in a cell. One component
would be an automatic factory capable of collecting raw materials and
processing them into an output specified by a written instruction.
This is the analogue of the ribosome. Another component would be a
duplicator, an automaton which takes the written instruction and
copies it. This is the analogue of the DNA replicating system.
Another component would be a written instruction containing the
specification for the complete system, which is the analogue of the
DNA...The fact that artificial automata and living organisms both
have to conform to the same general design to meet the criteria for
self- replication tends to reinforce the feeling that perhaps no
system simpler than the cell system can exist which can undergo
genuine autonomous self-duplication. The difficulty that is met in
envisaging how the cell system could have originated gradually is
essentially the same as that which is met in attempting to provide
gradual evolutionary explanations of all the other complex
adaptations in nature." (Denton M., "Evolution: A Theory in
Crisis", 1985, p269)
To date the difficulties of building such a Von Neuman machine has
been beyond our technology:
"One of the accomplishments of living systems which is, of course,
quite without any analogy in the field of our own technology is their
capacity for self-duplication. With the dawn of the age of computers
and automation after the Second World War, the theoretical
possibility of constructing self-replicating automata was considered
seriously by mathematicians and engineers. Von Neumann discussed the
problem at great length in his famous book Theory of Self-
Reproducing Automata, but the practical difficulties of converting
the dream into reality have proved too daunting. As Von Neumann
pointed out, the construction of any sort of self-replicating
automaton would necessitate the solution to three fundamental
problems: that of storing information; that of duplicating
information; and that of designing an automatic factory which could
be programmed from the information store to construct all the other
components of the machine as well as duplicating itself. The
solution to all three problems is found in living things and their
elucidation has been one of the triumphs of modern biology. So
efficient is the mechanism of information storage and so elegant the
mechanism of duplication of this remarkable molecule that it is hard
to escape the feeling that the DNA molecule may be the one and only
perfect solution to the twin problems of information storage and
duplication for self-replicating automata." (Denton M., "Evolution:
A Theory in Crisis", 1985, pp337-338)
This is despite the fact that Von Neumann laid down the design
principles more than 40 years ago:
"E. coli must have some sort of long-term memory about how to make
itself that can outlast its substance. That means that an E. coli
must be an automatic factory containing something analogous to
control tapes and automatic manufacturing equipment. And that is
only part of it. All the equipment must be contained, organised,
fed. Pieces for it to work on, energy to drive it, must be provided
by the E. coli cell. Apart from the manufacturing machinery that can
follow instructions, there has also to be another kind of machinery
that instead reprints them - something analogous to a Xerox machine
or a tape copier. All these things have to be contrived through the
manufacturing machinery duly instructed by appropriate bits of the
Library tape. It may seem hardly surprising that no one has ever
actually made a self-reproducing machine, even though Von Neumann
laid down the design principles more than 40 years ago. You can
imagine a clanking robot moving around a stock-room of raw components
(wire, metal plates, blank tapes and so on) choosing the pieces to
make another robot like itself You can show that there is nothing
logically impossible about such an idea: that tomorrow morning there
could be two clanking robots in the stock-room...(I leave it as a
reader' home project to make the detailed engineering drawings.)
There is nothing clanking about E. coli; yet it is such a robot, and
it can operate in a stock-room that is furnished with only the
simples raw components. Is it any wonder that E. coli's message tape
is long? (If you remember the paper equivalent would be about
kilometres long. ) Is it any wonder that no free-living organisms
have been discovered with message tapes below ' 2 kilometres'? Is it
any wonder that Von Neumann himself, and many others, have found the
origin of life to be utterly perplexing?" (Cairns-Smith A. G.,
"Seven Clues to the Origin of Life", 1993, pp14-15)
PM>How you could conclude from looking at this that there is an
>intelligent designer is beyond me.
If and when science manages to build a Von Neumann machine, then it
will be able to say that such a machine can be built by human
"intelligent design". Then when science can build a a Von Neumann
*without* using human "intelligent design", then it can say that
unintelligent natural causes could do it.
PM>There is no need for such an assumption, no evidence for such an
>assumption. I see something I do not (yet_) understand and assume
>an intelligence did it? Is that the argument?
Not quite. I see something of such fantastic complexity that
20th-21st century technology has not (cannot?) emulate it. Indeed
it may be that human technology will *never* be able to emulate it.
Self-reproducing Von Neuman automata may turn out to be forever
beyond us. Yet you claim that the blind forces of nature made such
machines with no "intelligence" whatsover? "Is that" *your*
"argument"?
>SJ>"Further, contemporary organisms carry their genetic information
>in nucleic acids-RNA and DNA-and use essentially the same genetic
>code. This code specifies the amino acid sequences of all the
>proteins each organism needs.
PM>So it is a specific complexity in that it performs a specific
>task. But specified? This presumes that there was something that
>did the specifying.
Pim, part of your problem is using inprecise terminology by which you
seem to confuse yourself. When you say "something" above, I presume
you mean "someone". Both Orgel and Dawkins use the word "specified"
and therefore they must "presume that there was something that did
the specifying." But since they are both atheists, it is clear they
do not believe that "there was" *someone* "that did the specifying."
PM>Perhaps the confusion lies in the word specified when it should
>be specific ?
No. The term "specified complexity" is part of the scientific
literature, used by non-theist origin of life theorists like Orgel:
"Living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity.
Crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity;
mixtures of random polymers fail to qualify because they lack
specificity." (Orgel L.E., "The Origins of Life", 1973, p189, in
Thaxton C.B., Bradley W.L. & Olsen R.L., "The Mystery of Life's
Origin", 1992, p130)
and just because it lies beyond your threshold of "personal
incredulity" does not mean we have to use your less precise
terminology.
[...]
>SJ>Sorry Pim, but "adaptation to environmental pressures" is a
>feature of *living systems*. Non-living chemicals do not "adapt to
>environmental pressures".
>PM>But they do, they do.
>SJ>Are you claiming that "Mon-living chemicals...adapt to
>environmental pressures", using "adapt" *in the same sense* as
>"living systems"? If so, please give examples or references.
PM>Fox protocells responded to external stimuli for instance.
So do soap bubbles! Origin of life specialist Robert Shapiro, says
of Fox's "protocells":
"Sidney Fox has not merely served as a rallying point for the
proteins- first group, but has advocated the particular system of
proteinoid microspheres, first demonstrated in his laboratory in the
late 1950s, as the solution to the origin-of-life problem. Needless
to say, this position has made him a center of controversy...it has
attracted a number of vehement critics, ranging from chemist Stanley
Miller and astronomers Harold Urey and Carl Sagan to Creationist
Duane Gish. On perhaps no other point in origin-of-life theory could
we find such harmony between evolutionists and Creationists as in
opposing the relevance of the experiments of Sidney Fox." (Shapiro
R., "Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Origin of Life", 1986,
pp191-192)
After a long and fairly sympathetic treatment of Fox's "protocells",
Shapiro concludes:
"During my childhood, I learned that I could make the shadow of a dog
with my hand. I needed only to point my thumb out, bend in my index
finger, and hold my hand before a light to produce the image of a
dog's head on the wall. I could enhance the effect by moving my
pinky while making barking noises. But this form was not a dog, nor
could it ever become one; it was merely shadow play. In the same
way, the properties of the microspheres, while entertaining, may be
merely shadow play." (Shapiro R., "Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to
the Origin of Life", 1986, p201)
PM>I also remember an article in which new chemicals are designed
through combination of randomness and selection. If I could only
remember where....
Don't bother. You don't have to "remember where". Your own word
"designed" is sufficient to refute your argument. When you can show
"non-living chemicals" that "adapt" (*in the same sense* as "living
systems") "to environmental pressures", *without* the aid of human
"intelligent design" then we would have something to discuss!
[...]
>SJ>See above. Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA
>states that "Living things...are specified in detail at the level
>of atoms and molecules": "The problem of the origin of life is, at
>bottom, a problem in organic chemistry the chemistry of carbon
>compounds-but organic chemistry within an unusual framework.
PM>I am glad Crick considers this 'specified detail' "a problem in
>organic chemistry...within an unusual framework'.
There is no reason to be "glad" just yet! The fact is that so
"unusual" is this "framework" that genuises like Crick have been
unable to replicate it in a laboratory after 44 years of trying, yet
the claim is that blind natural forces did it themselves, without any
intelligent guidance. Indeed, so "unusual" is this "framework" that
Crick admits that "so many are the conditions which would have had to
have been satisfied to get it going", that "the origin life appears
at the moment to be almost a miracle":
"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now,
could only state that in some sense, the origin life appears at the
moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would
have had to have been satisfied to get it going." (Crick F., "Life
Itself", 1981, p88)
>SJ>Living things, as we shall see, are specified in detail at the
>level of atoms and molecules, with incredible delicacy and
>precision..." (Crick F., "Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature",
>1981, p37)
PM>How are they specified? In advance? Or highly organized?
Dawkins says that "living things" have a "quality that is specified
in advance":
"We were trying to put a finger on what it is that humans and moles
and earthworms and airliners and watches have in common with each
other, but not with blancmange, or Mont Blanc, or the moon. The
answer we have arrived at is that complicated things have some
quality, specifiable in advance, that is highly unlikely to have been
acquired by random chance alone. In the case of living things, the
quality that is specified in advance is, in some sense
'proficiency'..." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker",, 1991,
pp9-10)
[...]
PM>A general relationship perhaps but only in appearance. There is
>no one to one mapping of one entropy onto the other.
SJ>"It would be quite impossible to produce a correspondingly simple
>set of instructions that would enable a chemist to synthesize the
>DNA of an E. coli bacterium."
PM>So it is more complex. But that is no evidence of
>specified'ness' other than that it takes more time to specify the
>details. So is it level os specified'ness' ? A crystal is less
>specified than DNA? What does this prove ?
No. It takes "more" *information* "to specify the details". The
specification to build a "crystal" would be a relatively simple
formula. The specification to build an "E. coli bacterium" would
immense, and would exceed by far the information in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica. A single-cell amoeba has as much information in their
DNA as 1,000 Encyclopaedia Britannicas":
"...there is enough information capacity in a single human cell to
store the Encyclopaedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or
four times over. I don't know the comparable figure for a willow
seed or an ant, but it will be of the same order of staggeringness.
There is enough storage capacity in the DNA of a single lily seed or
a single salamander sperm to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica 60
times over. Some species of the unjustly called 'primitive' amoebas
have as much information in their DNA as 1,000 Encyclopaedia
Britannicas." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker", 1991, p116)
>SJ>In this case the sequence matters. Only by specifying the
>sequence letter-by-letter (about 4,000,000 instructions) could we
>tell a chemist what to make. Our instructions would occupy not a
>few short sentences, but a large book instead!" (Thaxton C.B.,
>Bradley W.L. & Olsen R.L., "The Mystery of Life's Origin, 1992,
>p131)
PM>That's because we want to specify a complex detail to the
>chemist. What is this supposed to show ? That our language is
>poor in describing complexity?
No. It's got nothing to do with "our language". It is inherently
relatively easy to describe the "complexity" of a non-living thing.
But is inherently difficult to describe the *specified* "complexity"
of a *living* thing.
>SJ>Mind!
>PM>And there are observations showing that DNA order is different
>from snowflake order? Your hypothesis is founded on this
>unsupported assertion. SJ>Pim, I have given kilobytes of "support"
>for my arguments, including "that DNA order is different from
>snowflake order."
PM>All you have shown is that it is more complex.
That is true. But I have also "shown" that it is of a *qualitatively
different* level of "more complex", namely *specified complexity*.
The fact that you just stonewall and deny it, without citing any
scientific literature, is *your* problem, not mine. You remind me of
a YEC I used to debate on Fidonet. He would just deny everything and
demand that *I prove to him* that the earth was *not* 6,000 years
old. I couldn't do that, but it was *his* problem, not mine.
[...]
>SJ>Your claim was that "information theory entropy has no
>relationship to the entropy as defined by thermodynamics". I
>responded with a quote from a "university physics textbook" that
>there is a "`relationship' between `entropy as defined by
>thermodynamics' and `information theory' ".
PM>The relationship is similarity of the two, i.e. similar
>mathematical tools can be used but that is where the relationship
>ends. Well that's a "relationship"!
>PM>Hmm, so what do you claim then? You presume specified complexity
>so that you can or have to invoke a designer?
>SJ>Pim, I have supplied kilobytes of "what" I "claim".
PM>You have supplied Kb's of what others claim.
It is "what I claim", *backed up* by what "others claim". What else
am I supposed to do, given the limitations of this medium? And at
least I cite "what others claim", which is more than can be said for
you.
>SJ>I do not "presume specified complexity". It is a scientific
>*fact* that there *is* "specified complexity". I have cited
>statements from non-theist scientists like Orgel, Dawkins and Crick,
>to that effect. You have cited *no* references from the scientific
>literature that there is no "specified complexity". I "invoke a
>designer" to explain that *fact* of "specified complexity".
PM>That's all there is to it? You invoke a designer? Others invoke
>chemistry ? Perhaps you invoke a designer who uses chemistry ?
>Where is the evidence for the designer then?
Not so fast! I made *three* points, in answer to the following
question from you:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 21:53:30 -0400 To: sejones@ibm.net,
evolution@calvin.edu From: "Pim van Meurs" <entheta@eskimo.com>
Subject: Re: Origin of life, thermodynamics 2/2 #2
[...]
PM>That is a poor method based upon the idea of design which has
>already been shown circular. You observe complexity and assume it
>has to be specified and therefore it requires a designer. Highly
>circular.
SJ>No. I "observe" *specified* "complexity and assume it...requires
>a designer". It really is "specified", in the sense that the genetic
>code in DNA specifies via RNA to cellular protein-enzyme systems to
>make a specific amino acid:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
but you are trying to slip past the first two:
1. Specified complexity is a scientific fact. I have cited
statements from non-theist scientists like Orgel, Dawkins and Crick,
to that effect.
2. You have cited *no* references from the scientific literature to
back up your assertions that there is no specified complexity.
3. I invoke a designer to explain that *fact* of specified
complexity.
Please deal with the first two points before jumping to the third.
Thanks.
[...]
>SJ>Pim, you said "There is no such thing as specified in advance
>order", with no qualification. I gave an example of "specified in
>advance order", namely sending "a man to the moon".
PM>This presumes intelligence or a designer. Circular as the moon.
No it is not "circular" at all. My premises do not contain the
conclusion. The fact that I cite atheists like Dawkins and Orgel who
admit that living things are characterised by "specified complexity"
is sufficient to refute your claim. I do not "presume" that there is
"a designer", just that there is *evidence* for one since our uniform
experience is that other specified complex things like machines
require a intelligent designer, and science to date has not been able
to offer a satisfactory explanation of how the evident design of
living things arose without a designer.
Actually it is *you* who are guilty of circular reasoning Pim. You
"presume" there is *no* "designer" and refuse even to consider any
evidence of design. You cannot even admit that there is "specified
complexity", even when atheists like Dawkins and Orgel acknowledge
that there is. You appear trapped in a particularly vicious circle
of materialistic-naturalistic reasoning that prevents you from even
seeing the evidence against your position. Supporting this is that
you cannot even cite any evidence against the theory of evolution.
[continued]
Regards.
Steve
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