At 02:20 PM 12/05/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>From: ccogan@telepath.com (Chris Cogan)
>Chris:
> >First, the idea that chance can *never* (as Bertvan puts it) result in an
> >improvement in the genes of an organism is like the idea that one can
> >*never* get the right answer on a multiple-choice test question by randomly
> >selecting an answer (based on rolling a die, for example).
>
>Bertvan:
>I quite agree that one might randomly get the right answer to a
>mulitple-choice test, but I doubt you'd randomly get a correct answer
>consisting of several hundred words. Most biolgical systems are specified
>by thousands of nucleotides.
What if there were millions or even *billions* of "right" answers (as, in
the real world of evolution, there *are*)? What if the "right" answer is
"make part x somewhat larger (or smaller, or wider, or whatever -- as, in
the real world, it *often* is)? What if the "right" answer is, "make this a
little *different* from that"? In evolution, there is *no* such thing,
except very rarely, of *THE* right answer, a few hundred words. Suppose you
have an organism with a genome of a few thousand nucleotides. The *right*
answer is *any* change that enables it to reproduce that genome more
effectively. For few thousand nucleotides, this could mean that the number
of changes that would benefit the genome might be in the neighborhood
(using *very* conservative assumptions), of a few *trillion* different
changes, any *one* of which would be beneficial to it, even if it involved
doing nothing more than replacing *one* nucleotide with another, and some
spot somewhere in that string of a few thousand nucleotides. You have a
computer. Write a Basic program to do the math, or borrow someone's pocket
calculator. Check it out for yourself. It's not even *difficult* math.
Ordinary high-school kids do more sophisticated calculations every day.
It's absolutely amazing that a person who claims to believe that even a
simple cell is intelligent (perhaps even *more* intelligent than humans)
has not devoted her life to the study of biology. One might think that a
person with such a belief would be spending practically every spare minute
of her life *studying* life, *studying* intelligence, *studying* how life
works, *studying* the mathematics necessary to understanding how life
(intelligent or not) works, *studying* how evolution works in the real,
physical, tangible world.
But, you don't. Your keep yourself almost totally free of any knowledge of
any of biology and the rest of these topics. Just how *do* you square that
with your belief in the mystical/magical, undetectable intelligence of the
cell, that can redesign its own genes with no apparent access to computers,
libraries of information on physics and chemistry, without blackboards or
laboratories. Your view implies that a single cell a few minutes old has
more knowledge and intelligence than the entire human race from the
beginning of its existence till now, yet you show an absolutely
*astonishing* lack of any interest beyond the absolutely most shallow and
casual in the actual workings of cells, genes, enzymes, or anything else
that cells do.
If your claim is true, it would be *the* single most amazing discovery of
human history. If it were true, and could be established, it would change
*everything* about our understanding of the universe. It would change
physics and chemistry, nearly all genetic principles would have to be
abandoned overnight, and even astronomy and cosmology would be turned
inside out by the changes that would be required in physics.
But, strangely, you show no more signs of serious interest in *actually*
studying cell biology than a high-school student who knows only that "cell"
is only a word that goes with "phone," and nothing else. You keep yourself
almost totally free of any knowledge of any of biology and the rest of
these topics. Just how *do* you square that with your belief in the
mystical/magical, undetectable intelligence of the cell, that can redesign
its own genes with no apparent access to computers, libraries of
information on physics and chemistry, without blackboards or laboratories?
Your view implies that a single cell a few minutes old has more knowledge
and intelligence than the entire human race from the beginning of its
existence till now, yet you show an absolutely *astonishing* lack of any
interest beyond the absolutely most shallow and casual in the actual
workings of cells, genes, enzymes, or anything else that cells do.
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