>And guess what? It has become increasingly clear that cells are anything
>but messy. This view may have been held in the 60s, but we now know
>that cellular life exists in such a way that precise timing, precise
positioning,
>and precise arrangement is crucial. Or consider my posts on proofreading.
>Every step along the pathway of information flow is proofread (DNA
replication
>transcription, the charging of tRNA, the binding of tRNA to mRNA). This
>is the very opposite of messy and opportunistic.
>
>So why think such a clean and sophisticated reality is the product of
>such a messy and opportunistic mechanism?
Terry replied:
>I'm not sure that we're saying that the end product is messy (although
>that's not always so clear). We're saying that the process by which we get
>to the end product is messy. I.e. historical, contingent, etc.
I understand the distinction, but let's probe deeper.
First, it is indeed true that the scientific community believes
the process that generated cells (life as we know it) was
messy. But where is the evidence behind this belief?
If we are to propose a messy process generated cells, then
for this proposal to be good science, it ought to carry
implications about what we should find in the world and
these implications should be turned into predictions that
are then supported by what we do find.
So what implications about life are made by the
"messy process" proposal?
It would seem to me a natural implication to propose
messy products of a messy process. Common
experience indicates this (I'm a fairly unorganized and
messy person (process) and you should see my desk (product)).
And it is unclear why natural selection would remove the mess, as
natural selection cares only if "something works" and messy
things can "work."
For example, is the existence of proof-reading, at every step
along the path of information flow, implied by a messy process
behind origins? I don't see why. For I really don't see why
the "messy process" would evolve proofreading at every
step since the messy process *already* involves a proofreader
called natural selection.
If the messy process does not imply a messy product,
but could just as well imply a clean and smooth product,
is doesn't seem to make any implication about the product.
So it doesn't seem to be very good science.
In stark contrast, an ID hypothesis seems more rigorous
at this level, as a messy product is not something implied
by *intelligent* design. Take proofreading again. To me,
this seems clearly implied by ID in light of the view
that CSI is positive evidence of design and the fact
that quality control mechanisms are often entailed
in design. In fact, it was this very perspective that
allowed me to *deduce* the existence of proofreading
during transcription, only to then find that recent
evidence has indeed discovered this takes place.
Let's be honest. If cells were basically simple and
messy, this would be cited as evidence that points
in a different direction than intelligent design. So I
can't help but shake the impression that a double standard
is behind the "messy process" view, where evidence of
messiness would be used to support it, but evidence
to the contrary doesn't count in any way against it.
Let's be honest again. If the 'appearance of design'
evaporated when one focused on the cellular and molecular
processes of life, this too would be cited as evidence
that points in the different direction than ID. But
Paley's watch analogy does not breakdown at this level.
But it could have, or at least, that's what the scientific
community essentially expected. The history of biology
has long been a history of underestimating the complexity
and sophistication of the cell. Scientists have long viewed
the cell as little more than a membranous bag housing
a large set of second-order reactions. And again, I'm back to
that feeling of a double standard.
Nevertheless, with this said, let's consider the messy
process itself (your point). Even though we have no
evidence that such a process spawned cells, let's employ
it as a purely hypothetical speculation (what it is) and see
what it implies, not about cells, but about the pattern of
cells.
If we seriously propose a "messy and opportunistic"
process (Susan's words) behind the origin of cells,
does this really imply the existence of only three
basic cell types? Clearly, no scientist believes the
cells we study, although endowed with very ancient
systems, represent the cells near the origin of cells.
They are simply too "highly evolved," even in
their putative ancestral state. Thus, it seems we must propose
a rather long history of cells less "highly evolved,"
meaning a whole bunch of simpler, messy and opportunistic
cells for a very long time. Now, simple, messy and opportunistic cells, by
definition, would have very large degrees of freedom.
Lots of time provides lots of events to actualize this freedom.
Thus, it seems clear to me that a natural implication
of such a long history of freedom and opportunity implied by
this process is the discovery of many (say 50 or more) basic cell
types. Yet we only find three (which, in many ways, share only
*one* basic solution to the problems solved by the
messy and opportunistic process).
Of course, we can always argue that this doesn't
disprove the "messy process" speculation (what could?),
but then does the messy process imply we would only find
three basic cells types? No. So what in the world
does it imply about the world? We have to argue
that it doesn't imply the finding of many basic
cell types (even though this seems a natural implication),
because if it did, we'd have evidence against it.
But it clearly doesn't imply the finding of only three
basic cell types. Apparently then, it doesn't imply
anything, which explains why it can't be tested or
falsified and why there is no evidence for this
view. So then, why is this science?
Mike