Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true

[edwest]

Science is having a very big problem figuring out molecular switches. That is why evolution provides no guidance. That is why scientists are conducting genetic knock-out experiments to find out what happens when a bit of genetic material is removed. Does the organism die? Lose function? Fortunately, the tool they are using is being rapidly refined and the genome is being taken apart like a highly complex device. Bioinformatics is the necessary approach to actually learn what does what.

 

[edwest]

The instructions need to be precise and conserved. The chemicals involved must be arranged correctly and must be in a precise location.

 

[rossum]

Computer code does not write itself

How is this relevant? I am not the one asserting that DNA is a code. At best “code” is a metaphor, and one which should not be taken too far.

molecular switches need very precise instructions.

They do, which is why we sometimes see extra digits, a human tail or hen’s teeth when a mutation affects a switch.

Bacteria do not have as many switches as more complex metazoans, and very early life was even simpler. Working switches are a very obvious example of where natural selection can play a large part.

You might also usefully study the various lactase persistence mutations, where an ‘off’ switch is disabled.

 

[edwest]

It’s 100% relevant. And addressing fragments of my post is not the right way to have a discussion.

 

[rossum]

Despite your claims, the multiverse is the atheist escape route and requires more blind faith than Christians have ever needed.

How is this relevant? I am not an atheist, I have more gods than you. Buddhist cosmology has no problem with a multiverse.

 

[buffalo]

At best “code” is a metaphor, and one which should not be taken too far.

Uh no. Science is finding out it is much more of a metaphor. We can substitute language for code. Both still require a sender, receiver and a decoder.

 

[edwest]

Absolutely true.

 

[buffalo]

I am not an atheist, I have more gods than you.

Which is the supreme god?

 

[rossum]

What is subjective about the fact that the 4 ntides arrange themselves in ways that can be read to refer to other things like “protein” “eye” “heart” “eye colour” etc?

Meaning is subjective. Here is a piece of text with meaning:

pa bla med dag sgrub dang shin tu dag pa zhes,
bya ba ‘di ni sgom pa’i lam,
byang chub sems dpa’ mkhas rnams kyi,
lam shes nyid ni de 'drar bshad,
shes pas srid la mi gnas shing,
snying rjes zhi la mi gnas dang,

Of course, it only has meaning to someone who can read classical Tibetan. What quantity of meaning is present in that text?

It is easy to measure the Shannon information present. It is less easy to measure buffalo’s information-as-meaning.

 

[Rubee]

Of course, it only has meaning to someone who can read classical Tibetan. What quantity of meaning is present in that text?

It is easy to measure the Shannon information present. It is less easy to measure buffalo’s information-as-meaning.

What is subjective about the fact that the 4 ntides arrange themselves in ways that can be read to refer to other things like “protein” “eye” “heart” “eye colour” etc?

 

[edwest]

Intelligent Design 100%. On this subject, science, as defined here, has serious problems that continue to be avoided or not addressed.

 

[rossum]

Which is the supreme god?

Not wishing to be rude, I will refrain from answering. If you are interested, see the Brahmajala sutta, wrong view 5.

 

[buffalo]

Of course, it only has meaning to someone who can read classical Tibetan. What quantity of meaning is present in that text?

and this came from a mind. You exactly made the relevant point. It has a sender, receiver and one must be able to decode it for it to have meaning.

A design blueprint has functional specified complex information.
A process that has purpose exhibits the same.

These come from minds.

 

[buffalo]

Not wishing to be rude, I will refrain from answering. If you are interested, see the Brahmajala sutta, wrong view 5.

If there is not a supreme god then they are selfsame?

 

[rossum]

What is subjective about the fact that the 4 ntides arrange themselves in ways that can be read to refer to other things like “protein” “eye” “heart” “eye colour” etc?

Humans have genes to make a small tail. Those genes are normally switched off. However a mutation to the switch can activate those genes. Do those genes have “meaning”? Does the amount of meaning depend on whether or not they are activated?

What about genes that are activated on sexual maturity? Do they have “meaning” before they are switched on?

 

[Rubee]

Humans have genes to make a small tail. Those genes are normally switched off. However a mutation to the switch can activate those genes. Do those genes have “meaning”? Does the amount of meaning depend on whether or not they are activated?

What about genes that are activated on sexual maturity? Do they have “meaning” before they are switched on?

Meaning is more than that attempt to narrow it. If a precise arrangement refers to “eye” and a different precise arrangement of the exact same bits refers to “hair colour”, you have something meaningful.

1. The bits are neither “eye” nor “hair colour”. They are just simple ntides.
2. Their arrangement is neither “eye” nor “hair colour”. They are just signifiers.
3. This means we have abstract information (hence the H20 analogy is irrelevant)
4. These arrangements MEAN very precise things, not just anything. They are meaningful.
5. They are then used to make other things NOT the 4 ntides behave in specific non-random ways
6. These behaviour leads to the building of “eye” and “hair colour”.

If you don’t see a meaning in that arrangement, the problem is on your part. If they were meaningless, the arrangement for “eye” and “hair colour” in things that are not themselves “eye” or “hair colour” would not be precise and decodable just from the arrangement of 4 ntides. There’s nothing inherent to the 4 ntides that makes them have to signify “eye” or “hair colour”. This arrangement is meaningful. The meaning is “eye” and “hair colour”.

 

[buffalo]

Humans have genes to make a small tail. Those genes are normally switched off. However a mutation to the switch can activate those genes. Do those genes have “meaning”? Does the amount of meaning depend on whether or not they are activated?

What about genes that are activated on sexual maturity? Do they have “meaning” before they are switched on?

Yes, the epigenetics is the directing software that is programmed to switch on genes when needed. The programming pulls from the vast DNA library.

We also now know many “mutations” are directed by the software.

 

[edwest]

Very well said.

 

[Rubee]

Furthermore,

If there was no basic “code” or “language” then the arrangement of the millions of ntides could not be read or decoded as referring to “eye” or “hair colour”.

Examples:

-I took the online EdX Harvard CS50X introduction to Computer Science a few months ago but I never went past the first two classes. But I found it fascinating! But back to the point:

What I remember from it is that the most basic layer of computer programming or the original computer code, not only uses 1s and 0s as the fundamental bits but these signify real physical things in the chip (electric energy). You can use anything physical, however, to do that, so the course instructor used a bulb, (where “on” meant 1, and “off” meant 0) to demonstrate. A specific arrangement of 1s and 0s, signifies something specific so that if you change one digit, you have changed what the arrangement signifies.

Who determined these significations? Who decided that 1 followed by this number of 0s etc will always refer to A, for example, when 1s and 0s have nothing to do with the letter A or B or any letter? Programmers.

My understanding was that these rules (that this precise arrangement shall always signify this other thing) are what we call computer languages. These days, there are a few standard languages and most programmers don’t have to go to the 1, 0 levels to learn computer programming.

Another example, written language is a code for spoken language. In written English, for example, arranging the letters this way: C before A before T (CAT) signifies the sound K-AH-T, not D-AW-G or R-AH-B-EE-T! No. Just K-AH-T. How do I know this? Because there are rules that say that this specific arrangement of letters signifies that specific sound. There is no natural connection between the sound and the letter. I know the right sound to make only because of rules.

None of this is subjective. I’m not dreaming it or making it up. These rules exist apart from me and they are what we call “Written English”. The rules themselves are the language. And they are a code. Who created these rules? That’s right. Some humans at some point in the past did. In the CS example, the rules are not made up by me either when I’m typing on my keyboard.

Furthermore, spoken language itself is a code too! When I make the sound K-AH-T, everyone who speaks English knows I refer to a feline and not a dog, for example, since there’s a rule in English that says canines are not signified by the sound K-AH-T. The rules may say the same sound can signify different things, but all of it is encoded in such a way that we can communicate the ideas of a feline and a canine to another human who has not seen them outside the house and they’ll not be confused about whether I meant a feline creature or a canine.

CONTINUED…

 

[Rubee]

CONTINUED from last post…

In DNA, you have 4 ntides, in CS you have 2 bits, and in written English, you have 26 letters. They all act as signifiers of things beyond themselves in their arrangement. It seems to me very clear that no arrangement of the ntides could signify “eye” rather than “hair colour” without a language!

Without rules that say: When the 4 ntides are arranged this way rather than that way, they signify “eye”. Without such rules, it’d be impossible for a human geneticist to “crack” the code in the same way people crack old unknown written languages. We know humans create the rules/language when it comes to written English and CS. We don’t know who created the language of the DNA. However, we do know it is a language! Because we can read it precisely!

Yet when we ask where such creation of rules of signification of abstract info occurs except as the product of mind, we are led through tens of posts of “it’s not a code”, “it’s not a blueprint”, “it’s not instructions”, “it’s like H20”.

So two Hydrogen molecules atttach to an Oxygen molecule, is supposed to be fundamentally the same thing (we are told) just because the process of the ntides bonding like T-A is simple? But our contention is the arrangment of these bonded pairs to signify precisely very different things that have nothing to do with themselves!

Moreover, we have not just a language that is so logical that humans can decode it in a lab but we also have descriptions of specific things using that language! So each of us have our ntides arranged so uniquely in our DNA that corresponds to OUR make-up and not our mother’s or our brother’s–Just us! So now we have not just information, symbols, and a code/language/‘rules of signification’, we also have a message! (Ourselves!, from our hair to our toe). We have symbols/an alphabet (the 4 ntides), a language (the logic of signification that enables reading), and specific messages (An organism that has this eye colour, this height, etc etc). In other words, “meaning!”

It gets worse! This message exists prior to everything it describes! Plus it describes behaviour of other things, not just their properties, so that we now have an encoded procedure! All before the properties. This causes these other components to behave in specific ways that match that particular message and this entire enterprise builds a 3D version of the organism that is in message. So what do we have here? That’s right. Instructions!

And then we’re told H20! Gravity! Natural selection! Etc.

You don’t have to be a biologist to know you’re looking at:

1. Information,
2. Symbols
3. Code/Language
4. Message/Meaning
5. Clear instructions

The question is what besides a mind creates symbols, logical rules for reading them, a specific VERY MEANINGFUL, very precise message, and instructions?