LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
No, it was guided - by natural selection.
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buffalo
Guest
Linguistic experts have determined it to be a language.
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Techno2000
Guest
Yeah…millions of just the right natural selections, over and over and over, for every animal on the planet …sure.buffalo:
No, it was guided - by natural selection.
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benjamin1973
Guest
“Linguistic experts” can say whatever they want, but appealing to their authority is another kind of logical fail-- there is nothing special about linguistic experts that authorize them to decide whether DNA was created by God, or is an expression of God’s will. Nor, i think, did these experts mean to imply that; I doubt that they’d even agree with the inference you draw from it.
At any rate, you can find enough similarities between genetics and patterns to call it a language if you want to. But it is not the same as the spoken language of humans. This is still that same logical fallacy that I’ve been talking about.
You can call ANYTHING language, or information, or a code, or a message, or fill-in-the-blank. In doing so, you are trying to draw an analogy. But analogies can be stretched too far, at which point you can’t blindly keep mentioning them.
For example, I can say that a young girl blossoms like a lovely fresh flower at a certain age. The analogy is that she is coming into maturity as a thing of beauty. If, however, I start trying to collect pollen samples from my daughter every day, it’s not going to go over well. That’s because the analogy doesn’t include the actual mechanism of flowers.
The same goes for calling genetics a language. It is a language in that it passes information from one generation to another in an organized way. It carries “ideas” like how limbs should form or how one should behave when threatened. You can see the intermingling of genetic code as a kind of communication, or a debate between the male’s and the female’s genetics. However, you can’t go from this analogy to “so God” because you are using the term “language” which is special in that it doesn’t refer to conscious agents which use it deliberately.
It is in cases where there IS no analogy that the idea of God best serves us. There’s nothing like consciousness, for example, and there’s nothing like the Universe.
At any rate, you can find enough similarities between genetics and patterns to call it a language if you want to. But it is not the same as the spoken language of humans. This is still that same logical fallacy that I’ve been talking about.
You can call ANYTHING language, or information, or a code, or a message, or fill-in-the-blank. In doing so, you are trying to draw an analogy. But analogies can be stretched too far, at which point you can’t blindly keep mentioning them.
For example, I can say that a young girl blossoms like a lovely fresh flower at a certain age. The analogy is that she is coming into maturity as a thing of beauty. If, however, I start trying to collect pollen samples from my daughter every day, it’s not going to go over well. That’s because the analogy doesn’t include the actual mechanism of flowers.
The same goes for calling genetics a language. It is a language in that it passes information from one generation to another in an organized way. It carries “ideas” like how limbs should form or how one should behave when threatened. You can see the intermingling of genetic code as a kind of communication, or a debate between the male’s and the female’s genetics. However, you can’t go from this analogy to “so God” because you are using the term “language” which is special in that it doesn’t refer to conscious agents which use it deliberately.
It is in cases where there IS no analogy that the idea of God best serves us. There’s nothing like consciousness, for example, and there’s nothing like the Universe.
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edwest211
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It’s like the odds of winning the lotto every time for every little change - but a lot higher. I don’t think so.
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benjamin1973
Guest
Yeah, but the difference is that there are quadrillions of lottos going on every second of every day for billions of years. Everything that happens is improbable. If you trace a causal chain back to the Big Bang or to Genesis, you could say each event is almost infinitely improbable.
But there are infinite interactions among all the parts in the Universe, and so that “almost infinite” turns into something very different-- the inevitable formation of SOMETHING rather than nothing. It is this capacity-- the framework in which things can happen rather than nothing existing in which things might happen-- for which Catholics should thank God-- not the curing of Aunt Ethel’s kidney stones, or the Patriots winning the Super Bowl or whatever.
But there are infinite interactions among all the parts in the Universe, and so that “almost infinite” turns into something very different-- the inevitable formation of SOMETHING rather than nothing. It is this capacity-- the framework in which things can happen rather than nothing existing in which things might happen-- for which Catholics should thank God-- not the curing of Aunt Ethel’s kidney stones, or the Patriots winning the Super Bowl or whatever.
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LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
Hey, now you’re getting the idea!LeafByNiggle:
Yeah…millions of just the right natural selections, over and over and over, for every animal on the planet …sure.buffalo:
No, it was guided - by natural selection.
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Techno2000
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How many, and what kind of environmental changes had to happen just for the Sea Anemone/Clownfish relationship to evolve ?
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Hugh_Farey
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Well that’s all clear as mud to me. At least I get the feeling that the champions of anti-evolution believe that the first ‘kinds’ of animals were spontaneously generated from ‘the earth’. Presumably shortly before man on the sixth day of creation, whatever that means. I won’t go on about that,
Now I’d like to understand a bit more about the creationist view of this ‘program’ or ‘design’, which helps these animals respire, excrete, sense, move, grow, eat and reproduce, (the seven characteristics of ‘life’ taught to all primary students). I note that Aloysium cannot believe that “chemical processes, which would have randomly appeared in the first place, randomly bring about life in all its diversity”. I think that’s a bit of an Aunt Sally, if I may say so, The word ‘random’ is often hurled about by creationists in a fairly haphazard way, which I think needs a bit of explaining. Chemical processes are never ‘random’. They are among the most predictable things on the planet. Given that the first elephants were created spontaneously with all their DNA and appearance of age, learning and environmental conditioning, so that they could go about their business, then what about the next generation? From creation onwards, it seems, then organisms could follow the programs built into their first ‘kinds’, in what we might call an ordinary evolutionary processes. No?
In other words, if I accept, for the sake of argument, that the first ‘kinds’ were spontaneously created from the earth, is it true to say that from then on their development and offspring followed an entirely evolutionary scenario? That whatever the first elephants’ looked like, all the others arrived following the developmental, reproductive and evolutionary design laid down in that first manifestation?
Now I’d like to understand a bit more about the creationist view of this ‘program’ or ‘design’, which helps these animals respire, excrete, sense, move, grow, eat and reproduce, (the seven characteristics of ‘life’ taught to all primary students). I note that Aloysium cannot believe that “chemical processes, which would have randomly appeared in the first place, randomly bring about life in all its diversity”. I think that’s a bit of an Aunt Sally, if I may say so, The word ‘random’ is often hurled about by creationists in a fairly haphazard way, which I think needs a bit of explaining. Chemical processes are never ‘random’. They are among the most predictable things on the planet. Given that the first elephants were created spontaneously with all their DNA and appearance of age, learning and environmental conditioning, so that they could go about their business, then what about the next generation? From creation onwards, it seems, then organisms could follow the programs built into their first ‘kinds’, in what we might call an ordinary evolutionary processes. No?
In other words, if I accept, for the sake of argument, that the first ‘kinds’ were spontaneously created from the earth, is it true to say that from then on their development and offspring followed an entirely evolutionary scenario? That whatever the first elephants’ looked like, all the others arrived following the developmental, reproductive and evolutionary design laid down in that first manifestation?
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benjamin1973
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All of them, exactly, from the beginning of time, I would think. I don’t think either The Big Bang Theory or Creationism doesn’t plant the ultimate roots for our existence at some starting point. I also suspect that if you came face-to-face with a big bang singularity the human mind probably couldn’t distinguish that from God or vice versa.
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Kei
Guest
It pretty much is. There’s 4 letters and they go in a special sequence to identify different things, just like words.
And then the copying procedure is incredible as well, it’s copied multiple times so as to be in the correct order as it started out with. As I said, there’s literally a proofreading function (to paraphrase my biology textbook).
It’s pretty appropriate to refer to it as a language, in fact I’m sure I have heard the term the “language of DNA” before.
Here’s a resource for learning more How do genes direct the production of proteins?: MedlinePlus Genetics
And then the copying procedure is incredible as well, it’s copied multiple times so as to be in the correct order as it started out with. As I said, there’s literally a proofreading function (to paraphrase my biology textbook).
It’s pretty appropriate to refer to it as a language, in fact I’m sure I have heard the term the “language of DNA” before.
Here’s a resource for learning more How do genes direct the production of proteins?: MedlinePlus Genetics
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Aloysium
Guest
The randomness spoken about refers to changes in the DNA. It comes about through glitches or the noise that exists in every system - nothing is 100% efficient, Other causes of random change are toxins such as Agent Orange, viruses such as German measles or the Zika virus, radiation (why we put on sunscreen and a lead apron when we have XRays). This has been discussed before…
The point is that there must exist an order above that inherent in the atoms themselves in order to bring them together in the complex fashion we find in living organisms. These random changes could not produce the appearance of evolution in living forms. The tetrahedral structure of carbon allows for the huge variety of shapes taken by organic molecules such as proteins. It is their electrostatic shapes, which must be precise that allows for their use as receptors, hormones and other messengers, and the structural components of the cell. It is fantastical thinking that would imagine this happens seredipitously. Given the diversity that presents itself as individual species, that order, while appearing fairly consistent within a specific period of time, must be ultimately be a creative process to occur at all. It really is the best explanation. Natural selection merely mops up what doesn’t work; before that point there is an artistic bringing together of the “bricks and mortar” that build the “homes” that are individual living things whose existence is primary.
I haven’t heard anyone argue against adaptation, which is not evolution. There exists an appearance of age in the hardware and applications of my most recent laptop computer because it is based on previous models; it did not spontaneously morph itself from a 1988 MacSE, one of which still works but sits unused in my basement.
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Techno2000
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Keeping it vague…
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buffalo
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Nope. Not every pattern is language. Language requires a sender, a receiver and a key.
All languages and codes come from a mind.
All languages and codes come from a mind.
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buffalo
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I ask again, did you go through the links I provided, particularly the St Augustine Prime Matter one?
It might have been better for you chemical reactions were random. Then homochirility would not have to be dealt with.
Once the program is accepted, design comes in and blind unguided chance is out.
Evolution has no foresight.
It might have been better for you chemical reactions were random. Then homochirility would not have to be dealt with.
Once the program is accepted, design comes in and blind unguided chance is out.
Evolution has no foresight.
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edwest211
Guest
Yep. 16 characters.
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benjamin1973
Guest
Did your linguistic experts define language in this way, and still say that DNA represented a language? If so, then it is their intent directly to support the idea of Creation as opposed to evolution.
Is this what you are in fact claiming they’ve said, or is it an inference that you are drawing yourself?
Is this what you are in fact claiming they’ve said, or is it an inference that you are drawing yourself?
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benjamin1973
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You can call it a language, insofar as it conveys information, and that this information is structured in particular ways. What you can’t do is then say, “Well, we know language is created by someone, so who created DNA? God, that’s who!” We’re simply not talking about that kind of language, and conflating the two types is a violation of pretty basic principles of logic.
I’m not even saying that the conclusion wrong. But it’s a logical fallacy to arrive at it by way of these semantics.
I’m not even saying that the conclusion wrong. But it’s a logical fallacy to arrive at it by way of these semantics.
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buffalo
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We can apply this logic:
The Language of DNA
https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/accumulating-glitches/the_language_of_dna
Scientists aim to decipher language of DNA
The Language of DNA
DNA Language
Nucleotide Character
Codon Letter
Gene Word
Operon Sentence
Regulon Paragraph
- Whatever begins to exist has a cause. (reality)
- The universe began to exist. (science)
- Therefore, the universe has a cause.
- All languages, codes and messages come from a mind (reality)
- DNA is a coding system with a language & alphabet, and contains a message (science)
- Therefore DNA was designed by a Mind
The Language of DNA
https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/accumulating-glitches/the_language_of_dna
Scientists aim to decipher language of DNA
Loading…
www.news-medical.net
The Language of DNA
DNA Language
Nucleotide Character
Codon Letter
Gene Word
Operon Sentence
Regulon Paragraph
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rossum
Guest
DNA is an information carrier, not a language. Sunlight is also an information carrier, it carries information about the chemical makeup of the sun. There is no “language” and no “alphabet”.
You are smuggling in your conclusion here, by using terms like “language” and “alphabet”, which are designed, by humans. Your point fails because DNA was not designed by humans, hence “language” and “alphabet” are false analogies.
Show us an alphabet that was not designed by humans.
rossum
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