> From chadwicka@swac.edu Mon Feb 9 15:02:12 1998
> X-Sender: chadwicka@swau.edu
> Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 09:00:17 -0800
> To: etlgycs@etl.ericsson.se (Gary Collins), evolution@calvin.edu,
> JamesScottBell@compuserve.com
> From: "Arthur V. Chadwick" <chadwicka@swac.edu>
> Subject: Re: Baumgardner
> Mime-Version: 1.0
>
> > This development in the theory of the genetic code implies
> >a biological discovery of immense importance: not only are
> >the processes of life directed by programs, but also in some
> >extraordinary way the living cell produces its own program.
> >Professor Longuett-Higgins sums this up from the biological
> >point of view by saying that it results in the biological
> >concept of the program being something different from the
> >purely physical idea of a program. He says, 'We can now
> >point to an actual programme tape in the heart of the cell,
> >namely the DNA molecule.' Even more remarkable is the fact
> >that the programmed activity in living nature will not merely
> >determine the way in which the organism reacts to its
> >environment: it actually controls the structure of the
> >organism, its replication, and the replication of the
> >programmes themselves. And this is what we really mean when
> >we say that life is not merely programmed activity but self-
> >programmed activity.
>
> It is typically anthropocentric to suggest that the genetic mechanism of
> the cell is "like a computer", since if anything, the computer is like the
> genetic code, which obviously preceded the computer. But that aside, that
> man can produce a computer which has features reminiscent of the genetic
> code's abilities, should, I think, be taken as another powerful evidence
> that a mind or Mind lies behind each.
[snip]
Precisely. And that's just what Thorpe was arguing for in this book - the
primacy of Mind in nature. Thorpe was unable to accept Monod's views as
expressed in Chance and Necessity," and wrote this boom as a rebuttal of
Monod's views. Although not a Christian, he was in no way reluctant to state
the following:
And it must be remembered that such an instruction book [DNA/RNA] does not of
course specify the detailed positions, actions and functions of the great
hordes of molecules in each cell, still less answer any question of atomic
species and activities. It presumably supplies the instructions for the
structural and biochemical organization and functioning of the main types of
cell. Yet we are still largely ignorant of the mechanisms which enable it to
do even this. Truly we can say with the Psalmist, 'We are fearfully and
wonderfully made.'
This, of course, supports what is being discussed in another thread- that
"since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities- his eternal
power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what
has been made, so that men are without any excuse" Rom. 3.
He did see the machine-like nature of living organisms:
" In the time before mankind had passed the age of simple tool-making and
reached the stage of constructing complex tools with component moving parts, we
know of no objects in the inanimate universe which we could confidently
describe as machine-like; for of nothing in the natural inanimate universe can
we confidently ask the question 'What is this for?' and conceive of a
reasonable answer. And this of course was precisely Paley's argument.
One cannot sensibly ask of a glacier, a waterfall, a comet, a solar system, or
a galaxy, 'What is this for?' unless the cosmologists dare to tell us
that the supernovae are 'for' making heavy elements and so preparing the way
for life!
In striking contrast to all this, directly we come to examine the living world
and begin to appreciate the form, function, organization, and structure of
animals and plants, we find ourselves beset on every hand by machine-like
objects. That is to say, living things have parts which stand in a relation of
existential dependence to one another: for example, limbs, digestive systems,
circulatory systems, and brains. The electron microscope reveals such
machine-like structures, at the molecular level of organization, even in
viruses. And in a single cell we find organelles, so to speak 'micro-organs',
each of which seems to constitute some essential part of the cell's machinery
for governing and maintaining what Sherrington called the cell's 'furious
chemistry'. When we see a cell in a diagram or photograph, we think of it
structurally; but when a cell is seen alive, it is visibly a scene of intense
and seemingly purposive activity. To quote J. Lewis, 'The mitochondria are not
static lumps but highly mobile; squirming worm-like back and forth across the
cell spaces to where energy is needed. Everywhere there is movement, flow,
change.' This in a single cell. The structure of an organism such as Paramecium
or Vorticella (which, if not unicellular, are at least acellular) is even more
diversified into functional organelles, 'still more vigorously engaged in
perpetual movement, internal and external'. So we can ask of the structures in
a living organism, just as we can ask of the parts of a man-made machine, 'What
is this for?' and often we can at once give fairly exact and plausible answers."
but his views were that this nature did not arise by some purely physical
process, but rather that it was evidence of a designing mind.
/Gary