ElShamah - Reason & Science: Defending ID and the Christian Worldview
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ElShamah - Reason & Science: Defending ID and the Christian Worldview

Otangelo Grasso: This is my personal virtual library, where i collect information, which leads in my view to the Christian faith, creationism, and Intelligent Design as the best explanation of the origin of the physical Universe, life, biodiversity


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A chat with Miles Davis

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1A chat with Miles Davis Empty A chat with Miles Davis Fri Nov 12, 2021 6:20 am

Otangelo


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"Miles Davis" is a molecular/cell biologist by training and career. He did contact me by email, asking to have an exchange in regards to abiogenesis - evolution. He is an atheist. He agreed that I publish our exchange here at my virtual library.


Miles: some evidence can be consistent with more than one conclusion?  
Reply:  Eventually. That depends on case to case to be analyzed individually.

Just to be clear what I mean here is an example:

Miles:  Evidence:- A person A’s fingerprints are found on a murder weapon (let’s say it is a knife and the murder was a stabbing).  

Some conclusions consistent with this evidence :  

a. Person A is the murderer.
b. Person A handled the weapon at some point but is not the murderer.
c. Person A’s fingerprints were transferred to the murder weapon by some technical method by the murderer or their accomplice in order to frame person A.
d. Some sort of magic or supernatural effect caused person A’s fingerprints to appear on the weapon.

All the conclusions above are consistent with the evidence but only one leads to the conclusion that A is the murderer so we need a method by which we can determine which conclusion is correct?  

Reply:  Agreed.

Miles: We might disregard conclusion d. , at least initially, on the grounds that is seems so improbable that it would be a waste of time to investigate this possibility but the scientific method does not disregard any possible conclusions as we will see.

The best/scientific method is to seek more evidence but there might be a great deal of irrelevant evidence that we could waste time gathering so the scientific way to proceed is to form one or more hypothesis and then try to disprove that hypothesis.

Hypothesis:  Person A is the murderer.

Then we ask what novel predictions does this hypothesis generate and look for evidence that tells us whether those predictions are true. I don’t want to belabour the point but just for clarity I’ll give one more example:   Prediction:- Person A was at the scene at the time of the murder. If we find evidence that person A was somewhere else at the time of the murder then we have essentially disproved the hypothesis that person A is the murderer. It is still possible to come up with conclusions like:

Person A can perform long distance telekinesis and used this unique attribute to stab the victim.

Person A built a machine that mechanically stabbed the victim with the knife & then dismantled it at a later time.

But these seem extremely unlikely and would only be worthy of consideration if we had very good other reasons to think they might be true.

So, we can now treat the conclusion that person A is the murderer as highly unlikely. Please note that we have not proved 100% that person A is NOT the murderer. We must still be open to the possibility that new evidence will come to light to indicate that they did in fact stab the victim but our investigation will now look for other possible murderers and try to disprove the hypothesis that each one of them is the murderer.  

I’m sorry if that was a bit long winded but it outlines the way that I think evidence should be considered & conclusions reached. Do you agree?

Reply: Agreed. I think all options should be put on the table, and considered as a possibility. As a side note, that is one of my criticisms on the current philosophical framework around historical sciences.
Design is excluded a prior as a possible explanation of unique events that supposedly happened in the past. You can read more about it here:

Historical sciences, and methodological naturalism
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1692-historical-sciences-and-methodological-naturalism

Miles: My second point about evidence is that each piece of evidence must be examined separately to determine its validity. It is crucial that only valid evidence is considered when we form hypotheses and draw conclusions. Do you agree?

Reply: yes. Each phenomenon has to be analyzed individually.
 
Miles:  To demonstrate this, consider the stabbing example above. The initial evidence was that person A’s fingerprints were found on the murder weapon. If we check this evidence and find that the fingerprint match is incorrect or has been overstated or misinterpreted in some way, we must reject the statement “Person A’s fingerprints were found on the murder weapon”. It does not matter that someone once said it was true. It does not matter that we once thought it was true. We have checked, it is not true & we must reject it.  Again, I ask whether you agree?

Reply: yes. Agreed. 

OK, so I hope you will be able to agree with both these points about evidence since they should not be controversial. There may be other issues over what we can consider to be evidence or how best to analyse evidence but they can be dealt with if and when they occur in our discussion.

Now that it seems we both agree in a basic sense about how to handle and test evidence, hypotheses & conclusions I think we should pick a subject and make a start. My choice would be:

The origin of life on Earth.

I’ll briefly set out my position on this matter and you can let me know whether you are happy to start here and perhaps reply by setting out your position briefly. Then we can start to pick out pieces of evidence to examine, hypotheses to test and see if we can agree on a conclusion.

So, my short answer to the question “How did life on Earth originate?” is to say I don’t know; in fact, I’d say no human past or present knows the answer to this question.  

That may not seem very helpful so a longer answer would be that there seem to be several possible answers to this question as listed below:

1. Chemical reactions and physical processes on the Earth from ~4.5 billion years ago till ~3.8billion years ago gave rise to the formation of something that we can consider to be a basic single celled living organism.  

2. A basic single celled living organism arrived on the Earth ~3.8 billion years ago either on a comet, meteor or spacecraft.

3. A highly advanced but natural being assembled a basic single celled living organism using purely natural methods.

4. A supernatural being created a basic single celled living organism using purely supernatural powers.

There may be other possibilities not listed here but these are the ones that I can think of that fit the scientifically verified facts we know to be most likely true about life on Earth today, the history of life on Earth & how the Earth was formed. Please feel free to add to this list if you think there is one or more, I have omitted.

I consider the biblical account of the origin of life on Earth to be demonstrably false. We can explore the reasons for my rejection of this account if you think it should be included in the list of possible answers.

I also reject all the other creation accounts that I have heard e.g., the Hindu lotus flower story on the same grounds as I reject the biblical creation story.

Miles:  I will happily give you my opinions about these three subjects but first I must insist that you consider the list of options that I gave for the origin of life on Earth. Do you agree with my list of four options?
Reply: yes, I do.

Miles:  Would you like to include any other options?
Reply: I think I regards to origins of life, there are basically just following options:

1. unguided random events
2. physical necessity
3. design

The possible mechanisms to explain the origin of life
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2515-abiogenesis-the-possible-mechanisms-to-explain-the-origin-of-life

Miles:  The biblical account is accurate and true but God engineered the Earth to appear to be 4.5 billion years old and placed rock strata, fossils, radioisotopes, geomagnetic data, ERV DNA sequences and a host of other physical and biological markers in such a way that human beings in 2021AD might be fooled into thinking the Earth was 4.5 billion years old & life evolved from a single common ancestor.
Reply: The timeline, when all happened, is a different topic. So I don't want to entertain that quest right now.

Miles:  As I said in my previous email, I do not know how life originated on Earth.
Reply: First of all, it is not about knowing in absolute terms. Nobody has a time machine to go back. I use inference to the best explanation.

BAYESIAN PROBABILITY AND SCIENCE
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2721-bayesian-probability-and-science

and I also think saying " I don't know is unwarranted".

Here is why:

When you see a blueprint of a factory, with the precise instructions to make all machines, subparts, how to assemble each machine, interconnect them into production lines, organized production compartments, gates to permit the right materials to get in, and the end products go through error check and repair, and export, and then see the functional factory-build precisely upon the blueprint which you saw previously, and the operation of the factory close to  perfection, controlled and directed by computers, directing thousands of processes simultaneously and adapting the production output by its demands, but have no clue of how both, the blueprint, and the factory, came to be: What is the obvious answer:

a) That an intelligent team of engineers, machine designers, etc. made the project, and skilled, intelligent labor workers, carpenters, masons, electricians, machine builders, etc. constructed the factory, or
b) that natural forces somehow made the blueprint, and random unguided forces brought the building materials together, and by luck, the factory was assembled precisely based on the blueprint instructions and started its production ? or
c) you have no way to conclude anything meaningful and feel justified to say: " I don't know"?

Here is the argument:

The factory maker argument
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2245-abiogenesis-the-factory-maker-argument

Life comes only from life. That has never been disproven. Therefore, that should in my view be the default position.

1. Living Cells store very complex genetic and epigenetic information through the genetic code, and over forty epigenetic languages, translation systems, and signaling networks. These information systems prescribe and instruct the making and operation of cells and multicellular organisms. The operation of cells is close to thermodynamic perfection, and its operation occurs analogously to computers. Cells ARE computers in a literal sense, using boolean logic. Each cell hosts millions of interconnected molecular machines, production lines and factories analogous to factories made by man. They are of unparalleled gigantic complexity, able to process constantly a stream of data from the outside world through signaling networks. Cells operate robot-like,  autonomously. They adapt the production and recycle molecules on demand. The process of self-replication is the epitome of manufacturing advance and sophistication.
2. The origin of blueprints containing the instructional complex information, and the fabrication of complex machines and interlinked factories based on these instructions, which produce goods for specific purposes, are both always the result of intelligent setup.
3. Therefore, the origin of biological information and self-replicating cell factories is best explained by the action of an intelligent designer, who created life for his own purposes.

==========================================================================================================================================

Miles: Unguided events do not have to be random.  A chemical reaction is unguided but it is not random either. Unless you consider the physical laws to be the guiding agent which I would challenge because those laws are purely descriptive of our reality. I have no idea what you mean by physical necessity. I applaud the brevity of the phrase but that brevity is only useful if it conveys a clear meaning which, for me at least, it does not.
Reply:  when I post a link, I do it for brevity's sake, in order for a reply not to be too long. But I recommend that you actually access the link , and read the information, because it is relevant to the topic, and elucidates what I mean.

Physical necessity & Physical laws
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2515-abiogenesis-the-possible-mechanisms-to-explain-the-origin-of-life

Stephen C. Meyer observed:
“There are neither bonds nor bonding affinities—differing in strength or otherwise—that can explain the origin of the base sequencing that constitutes the information in the DNA molecule”
(Signature in the Cell, 243).

As Paul Davies lamented,
“We are still left with the mystery of where biological information comes from.… If the normal laws of physics can’t inject information, and if we are ruling out miracles, then how can life be predetermined and inevitable rather than a freak accident? How is it possible to generate random complexity and specificity together in a lawlike manner? We always come back to that basic paradox”
(Fifth Miracle, 258).

A law of nature could not alone explain how life began, because no conceivable law would compel a legion of atoms to follow precisely a prescribed sequence of assemblage.
Paul Davies, The origin of Life, page 17

Werner Gitt summarized it this way:
“A necessary requirement for generating meaningful information is the ability to select from alternatives and this requires an intelligent, volitional entity.… Unguided, random processes cannot do this—not in any amount of time because this selection process demands continuous guidance by intelligent beings that have a purpose”
(Without Excuse, 50–51).

Miles: Design. OK, but design by who/what? I gave two design options one by a God and one by some advanced alien being/civilisation. Also, we need to be precise about the thing that was designed. In my opinion the only possibility considering other facts we know about the Earth and life we see today is a basic single celled organism. Do you agree?
Reply: We can reduce our investigation to either: An intelligent designer was involved to create life, or not. Physical necessity can be excluded, because

Luisi, The Emergence of Life; From Chemical Origins to Synthetic Biology, page 21
A deterministic answer assumes that the laws of physics and chemistry have causally and sequentially determined the obligatory series of events leading from inanimate matter to life – that each step is causally linked to the previous one and to the next one by the laws of nature. In principle, in a strictly deterministic situation, the state of a system at any point in time determines the future behavior of the system – with no random influences. To invoke a guided determinism toward the formation of life would only make sense if the construction of life was demonstrably a preferential, highly probable natural pathway.

We can also exclude aliens because that would demand an explanation of the origin of these folks as well. The identity of the designer can be left for an inquiry after it has been established, that design is the better causal agent rather than not.

Miles: The rest of your email, while interesting but mostly incorrect, is putting the cart before the horse. 
Reply: Ok.

=========================================================================================================================================

Miles: I have proposed 5 possibilities, although I only proposed the 5th one for the sake of illustrating that all other possibilities seem somewhat absurd to me.
Reply: in regards to your example, I agree with all the options/possible explanations of the cause of the event.  We want to elucidate if a designer is the most likely explanation of the origin of life, or not. As clarified in a previous email, physical necessity is not an option, since there is no necessity for nucleotides to line up in a specified complex order.

Miles: You have eventually made the statement "An intelligent designer was involved to create life, or not." which while true does not advance the discussion at all because it attempts to ignore the basic facts that we know about the Earth and life on Earth and leave open all manner of absurd ideas that will just waste a great deal of time.
Reply: I think it advances the discussion since we restrict the possible options to those which are really relevant.

Miles:  Let me ask you a few simple questions. Please respond with short, ideally one word answers, so I can see whether we are starting from the same point or not. I have given my own one word answers to show how easy it is to answer these questions with a yes or no.
Please understand that I am not trying to avoid getting into the details,I just want to know whether you accept certain basic scientifically demonstrated facts or not.

1. Do you accept that the Earth is ~4.5 billion years old?     My answer: YES.
2. Do you accept that all life on Earth evolved from a single common ancestor?    My answer: YES.
3. Do you accept that all life on Earth is based on chemical reactions most of which are contained within structures we call cells?  My answer: YES
4. Do you know how life originated on Earth?  My answer: NO.

If your answers to these questions differ from mine then we have some work to do because we cannot proceed until we both agree on the answers to these questions.

Reply: All these questions are irrelevant to elucidate if intelligence was most likely involved to create life, or not. They are secondary questions which I am ok to discuss, but I think the quest of an intelligent designer was involved or not, is the most important one, and suggest we stick to attempt to clarify it, and then eventually can move on to those raised by you.

The age of the earth says nothing in regards of the question if God was involved in creating life, or not. Neither if there was a common ancestor. While we do not have absolute certainty how the first life form emerged, the evidence leads us to a very clear answer: Most likely, intelligence was involved. I have already given the reasons, which you were not willing to consider. Please do so.

1. Living Cells store very complex genetic and epigenetic information through the genetic code, and over forty epigenetic languages, translation systems, and signaling networks. These information systems prescribe and instruct the making and operation of cells and multicellular organisms. The operation of cells is close to thermodynamic perfection, and its operation occurs analogously to computers. Cells ARE computers in a literal sense, using boolean logic. Each cell hosts millions of interconnected molecular machines, production lines and factories analogous to factories made by man. They are of unparalleled gigantic complexity, able to process constantly a stream of data from the outside world through signaling networks. Cells operate robot-like,  autonomously. They adapt the production and recycle molecules on demand. The process of self-replication is the epitome of manufacturing advance and sophistication.
2. The origin of blueprints containing the instructional complex information, and the fabrication of complex machines and interlinked factories based on these instructions, which produce goods for specific purposes, are both always the result of intelligent setup.
3. Therefore, the origin of biological information and self-replicating cell factories is best explained by the action of an intelligent designer, who created life for his own purposes.

===========================================================================================================================================

Miles: Once again I'm disappointed with your reply. Those questions are not irrelevant, they are the very foundation we MUST establish before proceeding.
Reply: I disagree. When life started, and if it started from a common ancestor, says nothing about HOW it started, to name, if intelligence was necessary to instantiate it, or not. THAT is the relevant question, and if you insist in elucidating secondary questions first, we are done.

===========================================================================================================================================

Miles: I appreciate the attempt to simplify the syllogism but in my opinion it is still something of a mess. As it is written I still don't think it works as a valid syllogism but I'll leave that for now because almost no part of it can be justified as true & that is a much bigger problem than the structure. I have copied it in blue below with my comments in black

1. Blueprints, instructional information and master plans, and the making of complex machines and factories upon these are both always tracked back to an intelligent source which made them for purposeful, specific goals.  

This cannot be justified as true because you use the word "always". You can only use this word if you have knowledge of all things past & present in all universes. 
Reply: The algorithmic origins of life
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t3061-the-algorithmic-origins-of-life

1. Creating a recipe to make a cake is always a mental process. Creating a blueprint to make a machine is always a mental process.
2. To suggest that a physical process can create instructional assembly information, a recipe or a blueprint, is like suggesting that a throwing ink on paper will create a blueprint. It is never going to happen!  
3. Physics and chemistry alone do not possess the tools to create a concept, or functional complex machines made of interlocked parts for specific purposes
4. The only cause capable of creating conceptual semiotic information is a conscious intelligent mind.
5. DNA stores codified information to make proteins, and cells, which are chemical factories in a literal sense.

Miles: The statement would be true if it specified on Earth and up to the present day. Or you could say "in human experience".  This may seem like nit picking but I'm really trying to help you here.
Reply:  Unless you can disprove the statement, it stands. Resorting to an unknown mechanism is unjustified.

Miles: 2. Biological cells are a factory park of unparalleled gigantic complexity and purposeful adaptive design of interlinked high-tech fabrics, fully automated and self-replicating, directed by genes and epigenetic languages and signalling networks.

This statement is more of a problem. It is in my opinion completely untrue. Just the first six words "Biological cells are a factory park" are a complete untrut. Biological cells are not a factory park.
Reply:  Are Cells factories in a literal sense?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2245-abiogenesis-the-factory-maker-argument#4490

Each cell hosts a large number of Ribosome factories, therefore, the statement IS true. 

Ribosome: Lessons of a molecular factory construction
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0026893314040116

Nucleolus: the ribosome factory
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18712681

Ribosome: The cell city's factories
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/nature-environment/natural-history/ribosome-the-cell-citys-factories
In the cell, there are production lines, in this case, manufacturing new proteins of many different sorts. New goods and products are continually being manufactured from raw materials. In cities this takes place in workshops and factories. Raw materials are transformed, usually in a sequence of steps on a production line, into finished products. The process is governed by a clear set of instructions or specifications. In some cases the final products are for immediate or local use, in others they are packaged for export.

The Cell's Protein Factory in Action
What looks like a jumble of rubber bands and twisty ties is the ribosome, the cellular protein factory.
https://www.livescience.com/41863-ribosomes-protein-factory-nigms.html


Miles:   They may share some superficial similarities with factory parks but they are utterly different entities with utterly different purposes. 
Reply:  Biological Cell factories point overwhelmingly to set up by intelligent design
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1279p75-abiogenesis-is-mathematically-impossible#7761

factory portals with fully automated security checkpoints and control ( membrane proteins )
factory compartments ( organelles )
a library index and fully automated information classification, storage, and retrieval program ( chromosomes, and the gene regulatory network )
molecular computers, hardware ( DNA )
software, a language using signs and codes like the alphabet, an instructional blueprint, ( the genetic and over a dozen epigenetic codes )
information retrieval ( RNA polymerase )
transmission ( messenger RNA )
translation ( Ribosome )
signaling ( hormones )
complex machines ( proteins )
taxis ( dynein, kinesin, transport vesicles )
molecular highways ( tubulins, used by dynein and kinesin proteins for molecular transport to various destinations )
tagging programs ( each protein has a tag, which is an amino acid sequence ) informing other molecular transport machines where to transport them.
factory assembly lines ( fatty acid synthase, non-ribosomal peptide synthase )
error check and repair systems  ( exonucleolytic proofreading, strand-directed mismatch repair )
recycling methods ( endocytic recycling )
waste grinders and management  ( Proteasome Garbage Grinders )  
power generating plants ( mitochondria )
power turbines ( ATP synthase )
electric circuits ( the metabolic network )

Miles: Furthermore you include properties of biological cells "self-replicating, directed by genes and epigenetic languages and signalling networks" that are not shared with factory parks so within the statement itself you demonstrate that biological cells are not the same as factory parks.
Reply:  I am a machine designer. The flow of information goes from the engineering department to the factory, where factory workers read the blueprints, and upon the information assemble the machines and eventually, even build factories. That is analogous to what cells do, only that in the cell it happens fully autonomously. The entire process is fully preprogrammed. No direct intervention of intelligence is required.

The interdependent and irreducible structures required to make proteins
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2039-the-interdependent-and-irreducible-structures-required-to-make-proteins

Miles: This statement is also untrue. DNA is not a blueprint.
Reply:  DNA - the instructional blueprint of life

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2544-dna-the-instructional-blueprint-of-life

Cells in our body make use of our DNA library to extract blueprints that contain the instructions to build structures and molecular machines called proteins.
https://www.mpg.de/16227844/0107-mozg-keeping-sperm-cells-on-track-151300-x?c=2249

Miles: While it is true that people make that analogy it is just an analogy. Furthermore DNA contains zero instructional information. It does contain information but that information is not instructional. I know many people find this difficult to grasp but nowhere in DNA is there an instruction for anything.
Reply:  you said that you published science papers, and are a professional in the field, and make such an uninformed claim? I start to doubt that you have the credentials that you claim to have.

What does DNA do?
DNA provides instructions for making proteins
https://www.yourgenome.org/facts/what-does-dna-do

DNA Is Called The Blueprint Of Life: Here’s Why
OCTOBER 26, 2017
DNA is called the blueprint of life because it is the instruction manual to create, grow, function and reproduce life on Earth similar to a blueprint of a house. 10
https://sciencetrends.com/dna-called-blueprint-life-heres/

Miles:  Some DNA sequences have the ability under certain circumstances to interact with certain proteins. That interaction may lead to transcription or blockage of transcription or increase in the rate of transcription or replication of the DNA etc but there is no instruction. DNA does not tell any other molecule what to do.
Reply:  DNA carries the instructions necessary for your cells to produce proteins that affect many different processes and functions in your body.
https://www.healthline.com/health/what-is-dna

Miles:   Molecules, DNA, RNA, proteins and others interact according to the laws of physics and chemistry.
Reply: Physical necessity & Physical laws

Stephen C.Meyer, The return of the God hypothesis, page 216: 
Rather than having a genetic molecule capable of unlimited novelty, with all the unpredictable and aperiodic sequences that characterize informative texts, we would have a highly repetitive text awash in redundant sequences—much as happens in crystals. Indeed, in a crystal the forces of mutual chemical attraction do completely explain the sequential ordering of the constituent parts. Consequently, crystals cannot convey novel information. Bonding affinities, to the extent they exist, cannot be used to explain the origin of information. Self-organizing chemical affinities generate highly repetitive “order,” but not information; they create mantras, not messages

The nucleotide sequence of DNA and RNA  have an instructional function to make proteins and is NOT random but complex and specified, and not due to physical necessity or physical laws. And this is what events in a prebiotic land would need to produce: a minimal set of proteins .... and this kind of specification does not arise through chemical reactions ...... the result of a chemical reaction is not random. But the events dealing with an eventual chemical reaction would have been if there was not a mind guiding the events.

Life's Irreducible Structure, Michael Polanyi
Science mag, 1968
In Galileo's experiments on balls rolling down a slope, the angle of the slope was not derived from the laws of mechanics, but was chosen by Galileo. And as this choice of slopes was extraneous to the laws of mechanics, so is the shape and manufacture of test tubes extraneous to the laws of chemistry. The same thing holds for machinelike boundaries; their structure cannot be defined in terms of the laws which they harness. Nor can a vocabulary determine the content of a text, and so on. Therefore, if the structure of living things is a set of boundary conditions, this structure is extraneous to the laws of physics and chemistry which the organism is harnessing. Thus the morphology of living things transcends the laws of physics and chemistry.the codelike structure of DNA must be assumed to have come about by a sequence of chance variations established by natural selection. But this evolutionary aspect is irrelevant here; whatever may be the origin of a DNA configuration, it can function as a code only if its order is not due to the forces of potential energy. It must be as physically indeterminate as the sequence of words is on a printed page. As the arrangement of a printed page is extraneous to the chemistry of the printed page, so is the base sequence in a DNA molecule extraneous to the chemical forces at work in the DNA molecule. It is this physical indeterminacy of the sequence that produces the improbability of occurrence of any particular sequence and thereby enables it to have a meaning-a meaning that has a mathematically determinate information content equal to the numerical improbability of the arrangement.

A deterministic answer assumes that the laws of physics and chemistry have causally and sequentially determined the obligatory series of events leading from inanimate matter to life – that each step is causally linked to the previous one and to the next one by the laws of nature. In principle, in a strictly deterministic situation, the state of a system at any point in time determines the future behavior of the system – with no random influences. To invoke a guided determinism toward the formation of life would only make sense if the construction of life was demonstrably a preferential, highly probable natural pathway.
Luisi, The Emergence of Life; From Chemical Origins to Synthetic Biology, page 21

Just like computer codes, the genetic code is arbitrary. There is no law of physics that says “1” has to mean “on” and “0” has to mean “off.” There’s no law of physics that says 10000001 has to code for the letter “A.” Similarly, there is no law of physics that says three Guanine molecules in a row have to code for Glycine. In both cases, the communication system operates from a freely chosen, fixed set of rules.
In all communication systems it is possible to label the encoder, the message and the decoder and determine the rules of the code.
The rules of communication systems are defined in advance by conscious minds. There are no known exceptions to this. Therefore we have 100% inference that the Genetic Code was designed by a conscious mind.

Physical laws which result in physical constraints,  where chemical reactions are forced into taking a certain course of action is an often cited possible mechanism for the origin of life. 
We are moving from chemistry to biology. Henceforward, life, it goes without saying, is independent of its chemical substrate, and its evolution does not follow paths that are predictable solely based on the laws of physics.
M. Gargaud · H. Martin · P. López-García T. Montmerle · R. Pascal Young Sun, Early Earth and the Origins of Life, page 95

Laurent Boiteau Prebiotic Chemistry: From Simple Amphiphiles to Protocell Models, page 3:
Spontaneous self-assembly occurs when certain compounds associate through noncovalent hydrogen bonds, electrostatic forces, and nonpolar interactions that stabilize orderly arrangements of small and large molecules.  The argument that chemical reactions in a primordial soup would not act upon pure chance, and that chemistry is not a matter of "random chance and coincidence, finds its refutation by the fact that the information stored in DNA is not constrained by chemistry. Yockey shows that the rules of any communication system are not derivable from the laws of physics.  He continues: “there is nothing in the physicochemical world that remotely resembles reactions being determined by a sequence and codes between sequences.” In other words, nothing in nonliving physics or chemistry obeys symbolic instructions.

Ulrich E. Stegmann:  The arbitrariness of the genetic code March 2004 5
Some of the processes expected to involve semantic information are certainly not chemically arbitrary and, therefore, chemical arbitrariness is not a necessary condition for a semantic relation.

Miles:  Furthermore biological cells are not "made". A biological cell will under certain circumstances divide giving rise to two daughter cells which are usually very similar to the parent cell. In multicellular organisms cells interact and combine to form tissues and organs. Every single cell in every single organism on Earth today can trace its parental lineage back to one single cell that was formed on Earth ~4 billion years ago.
Reply: Common descent, the tree of life, a failed hypothesis
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2239-evolution-common-descent-the-tree-of-life-a-failed-hypothesis

1. The DNA replication machinery is not homologous in the 3 domains of life. The bacterial core replisome enzymes do not share a common ancestor with the analogous components in eukaryotes and archaea.
2. Bacteria and Archaea differ strikingly in the chemistry of their membrane lipids. Cell membrane phospholipids are synthesized by different, unrelated enzymes in bacteria and archaea, and yield chemically distinct membranes.
3. Sequences of glycolytic enzymes differ between Archaea and Bacteria/Eukaryotes. There is no evidence of a common ancestor for any of the four glycolytic kinases or of the seven enzymes that bind nucleotides.
4. There are at least six distinct autotrophic carbon fixation pathways. If common ancestry were true, an ancestral Wood–Ljungdahl pathway should have become life's one and only principle for biomass production.
5. There is a sharp divide in the organizational complexity of the cell between eukaryotes, which have complex intracellular compartmentalization, and even the most sophisticated prokaryotes (archaea and bacteria), which do not.
6. A typical eukaryotic cell is about 1,000-fold bigger by volume than a typical bacterium or archaeon, and functions under different physical principles: free diffusion has little role in eukaryotic cells but is crucial in prokaryotes
7. Subsequent massive sequencing of numerous, complete microbial genomes have revealed novel evolutionary phenomena, the most fundamental of these being: pervasive horizontal gene transfer (HGT), in large part mediated by viruses and plasmids, that shapes the genomes of archaea and bacteria and call for a radical revision (if not abandonment) of the Tree of Life concept
8. RNA Polymerase differences: Prokaryotes only contain three different promoter elements: -10, -35 promoters, and upstream elements.  Eukaryotes contain many different promoter elements
9. Ribosome and ribosome biogenesis differences: Although we could identify E. coli counterparts with comparable biochemical activity for 12 yeast ribosome biogenesis factors (RBFs), only 2 are known to participate in bacterial ribosome assembly. This indicates that the recruitment of individual proteins to this pathway has been largely independent in the bacterial and eukaryotic lineages. 22
10. Like the origins of DNA replication, the promoters of bacterial and yeast genes have different structures, are recognized by different proteins, and are not exchangeable. The absolute incompatibility between prokaryote (e.g., E. coli) and eukaryote (e.g., yeast) origins of replication and promoters, as well as DNA replication, transcription, and translation machinery, stands as a largely unrecognized challenge to the evolutionary view that the two share a common ancestor.

Miles:  PS FYI epigenetics is still DNA
Reply:  Where is the Talin code, the histone code, and the Glycan code stored ?

===============================================================================================================================================

Miles:   "Each cell hosts a large number of Ribosome factories, therefore, the statement IS true. " The claim you made is that cells are factories not that ribosomes are factories but neither claim is true.
Reply:  You need to pay more attention. I wrote: 2. Biological cells are a factory park of unparalleled gigantic complexity and purposeful adaptive design of interlinked high-tech fabrics.
A cell can be compared to an entire park of interlinked factories.

Miles:  
Factory:  A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial site, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another Neither a biological cell nor a ribosome meets that definition or even gets close to it.
Reply:  Go and look up the link. Many science papers describe cells as factories. So this is taken directly from the scientific literature

Are Cells factories in a literal sense?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2245-abiogenesis-the-factory-maker-argument#4490

The Molecular Fabric of Cells  BIOTOL, B.C. Currell and R C.E Dam-Mieras (Auth.)
The central theme of both of these texts is to consider cells as biological factories. Cells are, indeed, outstanding factories. Each cell type takes in its own set of chemicals and making its own collection of products. The range of products is quite remarkable and encompasses chemically simple compounds such as ethanol and carbon dioxide as well as extremely complex proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids, and secondary products. 

There in your own reply is that word "analogous" again . So by your own admission the syllogism is now not valid because the conclusion does not follow as a logical consequence from the premise.

Miles:  You also make it clear in this reply that cells are different to factories because they are fully autonomous and factories are not. When you consider organisms as a whole the degree of autonomy is even greater. That is because life is a completely different category of matter to anything else.
Reply: Herschel 1830 1987, p. 148:
“If the analogy of two phenomena be very close and striking, while, at the same time, the cause of one is very obvious, it becomes scarcely possible to refuse to admit the action of an analogous cause in the other, though not so obvious in itself.”

Miles:  they are still making an argument from incredulity. At least I hope it is incredulity.
Reply: "Incredulous" basically means "I don't believe it". Well, why should someone believe a "just so" story about HOW reality came to exist? That is the THING that we are incredulous about - a *certain scenario* ( naturalism, cosmological, chemical, and biological evolution, abiogenesis, and Neo-Darwinism, and that irreducibly complex biological system, coded, instructed or specified complex information, and entire factory complexes composed of myriads of interconnected factories, full of computers and robotic production lines could emerge naturally ) that's only *imagined* about how various amazing abilities of animals and plants happened all by themselves, defying known and reasonable principles of the limited range of chance, physical necessity, mutations, and  Natural selection. There are busy little molecular machines that let it untangle, replicate, and build according to plan. A large cadre of researchers continues to make new discoveries on a regular basis. Our mythology is that it explains life, but the system is far, far too complex to occur by accident, and requires that features to support many processes are required, making a path for its evolution very hard to surmise. DNA isn't the secret to life. It's a whole bunch of puzzles we don't have answers for. The proponent of naturalism is "incredulous" that an intelligent creator/designer could exist, beyond and behind our entire space-time continuum, who is our Creator. But there is nothing ridiculous about that - especially if you can't personally examine reality to that depth - how do you know nature is all that exists? What IS ridiculous (IMO) is trying to imagine a *naturalistic origin* of these things.  What we need, is giving a *plausible* account of how it came about to be in the first place, and the " No-God hypothesis" simply doesn't cut the cake.

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com

2A chat with Miles Davis Empty Re: A chat with Miles Davis Sun Nov 14, 2021 8:41 pm

Otangelo


Admin

Miles: I changed my mind and stayed up very late to reply. There are two questions at the end of this email. I'd be extremely interested in your answers.

You wrote:
"Go and look up the link. Many science papers describe cells as factories. So this is taken directly from the scientific literature"
I'm shocked that you still do not seem to understand the difference between analogy and identity. Your syllogism depends on cells being factories or a group of interlinked factories. They are not factories. Ribosomes are not factories.
Reply: Why should i take your assertions over what peer reviewed science papers say? Ribosomes MAKE , or PRODUCE proteins.  Factory is latin, from fabricare, and means literally the fabrication or make of things. Do you know what ribosomes are, and what they do? If you are a biochemist, familiar with biochemistry and biology, i guess you do know. We can describe them as factories, and/or as well as ultrasophisticated machines.

Ribosomes amazing nano machines
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1661-translation-through-ribosomes-amazing-nano-machines

Ribosome: The cell city's factories 16th May 2002
FACTORY:  New goods and products are continually being manufactured from raw materials. In cities this takes place in workshops and factories. Raw materials are transformed, usually in a sequence of steps on a production line, into finished products. The process is governed by a clear set of instructions or specifications. In some cases the final products are for immediate or local use, in others they are packaged for export.
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/nature-environment/natural-history/ribosome-the-cell-citys-factories

Ribosome: Lessons of a molecular factory construction
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0026893314040116

VijayKumar Introduction to ribosome factory, origin, and evolution of translation
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128163641000020?via%3Dihub

The protein factory
https://www.ebi.ac.uk/pdbe/about/news/protein-factory

O. V. Sergeeva Ribosome: Lessons of a molecular factory construction 15 August 2014
https://sci-hub.3800808.com/10.1134/S0026893314040116

Ever wondered how your cells work? They’re like tiny factories.
All the parts need to work together for your body to stay in business.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/ever-wondered-how-your-cells-work-theyre-like-tiny-factories/2017/05/26/135da89a-30d8-11e7-8674-437ddb6e813e_story.html

Miles: Mitochondria are not factories or power plants even though they are often described as the power plant of the cell.
No amount of wishful thinking on your part will change the fact that this is only an analogy.  The topic of the cell being a factory or network of factories is over for this discussion. Cells are not and cannot be factories.
Reply: You are in wilful denial. I am not going to comment on anything else until this matter has been clarified.

=========================================================================================================================================

Miles: "Why should i take your assertions over what peer reviewed science papers say? Ribosomes MAKE , or PRODUCE proteins.  Factory is latin, from fabricare, and means literally the fabrication or make of things. Do you know what ribosomes are, and what they do? If you are a biochemist, familiar with biochemistry and biology, i guess you do know. We can describe them as factories, and/or as well as ultrasophisticated machines."

Did you bother to read what I wrote?   The issue here is that those papers and articles all draw an analogy between ribosomes and machines. They do not claim equivalence. For your syllogism to work there must be exact equivalence between them. Do you concede that the syllogism is not valid?

Reply: No, i do not concede that. Do you want to split hairs about terms ? They describe them as factories in a literal sense, because that's what they do. They fabric or make things, like proteins, in case of the ribosome, for instance. And they are analogous , or equal to man-made factories, because that's what man-made factories do equally: producing things.

Now, let me even grant your claim that they were just analogously factories, or by metaphor. So what ? That does not invalidate the syllogism. To make it more clear for you to understand what this entails:

Blueprints, instructional information and master plans, and the making of devices that are made for purposeful, specific goals, are always tracked back to an intelligent source.

* these devices are composed of several well-matched, interacting parts, that contribute to the basic function, where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.

you can remove machines and factories, and replace them with a generalized term, like just devices, or things. That does not remove or invalidate the argument.

Now, the only way for you to deny the inference, is to show how random, unguided, non-intelligent causes or mechanisms can do the same.

The algorithmic origins of life
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t3061-the-algorithmic-origins-of-life

1. Creating a recipe to make a cake is always a mental process. Creating a blueprint to make a machine is always a mental process.
2. To suggest that a physical process can create instructional assembly information, a recipe or a blueprint, is like suggesting that throwing ink on paper will create a blueprint. It is never going to happen!  
3. Physics and chemistry alone do not possess the tools to create a concept, or functional complex machines made of interlocked parts for specific purposes
4. The only cause capable of creating conceptual semiotic information is a conscious intelligent mind.
5. DNA stores codified information to make proteins, and cells, which are chemical factories in a literal sense.

============================================================================================================================================

Miles   a perfectly valid set of scientifically verified systems and laws seems capable of explaining how those cells and components are produced in living organisms.
Reply: What i am exposing here, is an abiogenesis problem. How such things can emerge from inanimated matter.

Abiogenesis is mathematically  impossible
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1279-abiogenesis-is-mathematically-impossible

The factory maker argument
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2245-abiogenesis-the-factory-maker-argument

Intelligent design theory is like a sword with two edges

Intelligent design wins using eliminative induction based on the fact that its competitors are false. Materialism explains basically nothing consistently in regards to origins but is based on unwarranted consensus and scientific materialism, a philosophical framework, that should never have been applied to historical sciences. Evidence should be permitted to lead wherever it is. Also, eventually, to an intelligent agency as the best explanation of origins.

And intelligent design wins based on abductive reasoning, using inference to the best explanation, relying on positive evidence, on the fact that basically all-natural phenomena demonstrate the imprints and signature of intelligent input and setup. We see an unfolding plan, a universe governed by laws, that follows mathematical principles, finely adjusted on all levels, from the Big Bang, to the earth, to permit life, which is governed by instructional complex information stored in genes and epigenetically, encoding, transmitting and decoding information, used to build, control and maintain molecular machines ( proteins ) that are build based on integrated functional complex parts ( primary to quaternary polypeptide strands and active centers ), which are literally nanorobots with internal communication systems, fully automated manufacturing production lines, transport carriers, turbines, transistors, computers, and factory parks, employed to give rise to a wide range, millions of species, of unimaginably complex multicellular organisms.

Chance to find a message written on a cloud in the sky: "Jesus loves you" randomly,  is as DNA creating its own software, and upon it, writing a complex algorithm to make a protein by accident. DNA base sequencing cannot be explained by chance nor physical necessity any more than the information in a newspaper headline can be explained by reference to the chemical properties of ink. Nor can the conventions of the genetic code that determine the assignments between nucleotide triplets and amino acids during translation be explained in this manner. The genetic code functions like a grammatical convention in a human language.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT-RsCo1Flg

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2895-syllogistic-arguments-of-gods-existence-based-on-positive-evidence#7048

===========================================================================================================================================

Miles  There is no recipe for life written down anywhere that we have been able to find yet. I do hope you are not going to claim DNA is the recipe for life. It isn't a recipe.
Reply: 

Wikipedia:
Biological organisms contain genetic material that is used to control their function and development. This is DNA which contains units named genes that can produce proteins through a code (genetic code) in which a series of triplets (codons) of four possible nucleotides are translated into one of twenty possible amino acids. A sequence of codons results in a corresponding sequence of amino acids that form a protein.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_code

Control of Gene Expression and gene regulatory networks point to intelligent design
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2194-control-of-gene-expression-and-gene-regulatory-networks-point-to-intelligent-design#8983

1. A library classification sytem is a software program that organizes a library,  that contains the information of where to find the right book in a shelf.  
2. For any library to be useful, it needs to be organized in an easily searchable way. For example, all the books pertaining to history may be on one shelf, whereas books about geography may be in an entirely different section of the library.
3. The human genome is analogous to a massive library, containing over 20,000 different "instruction manuals": our genes. For example, there are genes which contain information to build a brain cell, a skin cell, a white blood cell, and so on. Each differentiated cell employs specific parts of its genome, namely those genes and regulatory regions that are necessary to construct each specific cell type required by the developing embryo.There are even genes that contain information about regulating the genome itself—like books that explain how to organize a library.
4. During development, the right genes need to be turned on and off, and expressed at the right time. A complex control system exists which causes the embryonic cells to differentiate so that the appropriate body parts and organs will develop at the proper location in the developing body at the required time.  The gene regulatory network controls the temporal and spatial deployment of cell fate determinants and differentiation of genes.
5. Such classification systems are always instantated by intelligence. The orchestration of gene expression has to be preprogrammed.

EVOLUTIONARY BIOSCIENCE AS REGULATORY SYSTEMS BIOLOGY Eric H. Davidson
There is always an observable consequence if a gene regulatory network subcircuit is interrupted. Since these consequences are always catastrophically bad, flexibility is minimal, and since the subcircuits are all interconnected,  there is only one way for things to work. And indeed the embryos of each species develop in only one way.

The Vast Little Library Inside of Your Cells November 04, 2021
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/the-vast-little-library-inside-of-your-cells

========================================================================================================================================

Miles   DNA sequences are transcribed to RNA and some translated to protein. Other DNA sequences have a binding affinity for proteins that regulate gene transcription or replicate DNA. In eukaryotes there are centromeres and telomeres which have other functions. Eukaryotes also have large areas of repetitive sequence that are of unknown function but may have a role in the general organisation of DNA in the nucleus.

None of this is anything like a cake recipe.
Reply: The recipe instructs how to make a cake. DNA sequences instruct how to make proteins. That's the equivalence. Very basic.

=========================================================================================================================================

Miles  There are very few, if any, real biochemists or molecular biologists anywhere in the world who agree with you that the genetic code could not have arisen naturally.Whether it did or not is the issue. It is not difficult to think of ways in which it could have arisen naturally in a conceptual sense.If you were correct, that it is even theoretically impossible for the genetic code to have arisen naturally there would be no scientific consensus that it did. Yet that concensus exists. Why do you think that is?
Reply: I did ask a question in regards to the origin of the information stored in DNA, not the origin of the genetic code. Usually, people that are not trained in biochemistry, conflate the two. Seems to be your case. Secondly, your claim is simply not true. Another sign you don't know what you are talking about.

The genetic code, insurmountable problem for non-intelligent origin
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2363-the-genetic-code-insurmountable-problem-for-non-intelligent-origin

Eugene V. Koonin Origin and evolution of the genetic code: the universal enigma 2012 Mar 5
In our opinion, despite extensive and, in many cases, elaborate attempts to model code optimization, ingenious theorizing along the lines of the coevolution theory, and considerable experimentation, very little definitive progress has been made. Summarizing the state of the art in the study of the code evolution, we cannot escape considerable skepticism. It seems that the two-pronged fundamental question: “why is the genetic code the way it is and how did it come to be?”, that was asked over 50 years ago, at the dawn of molecular biology, might remain pertinent even in another 50 years. Our consolation is that we cannot think of a more fundamental problem in biology.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293468/

Miles The big difficulty is working out how it actually happened. That is to say, what chemical reactions were possible at different times and places on the early Earth.
I think the problem here is that you do not understand how chemistry and biochemistry work.
Reply:  And I think that you are not actually reading carefully, and trying to understand my replies. The problem does not start with the origin of the right semitic sequence of nucleotides, but with the origin of the nucleotides.

RNA & DNA: It's prebiotic synthesis: Impossible !!
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2865-rna-dna-it-s-prebiotic-synthesis-impossible

RNA & DNA: It's prebiotic synthesis: Impossible !! Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZFlmL_BsXE

RNA & DNA: It's prebiotic synthesis: Impossible !! Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv4mUjmuRRU

Miles, I strongly suspect that you do not want to continue this conversation because you are talking to someone who knows the subject.
Reply: You have not shown your work, you are hiding, and have not demonstrated in this exchange that you understand the subject, as I expect a biologist, or biochemist would. So I suspect that you are lying.

Miles: I simply won't let you get away with making statements that are untrue about biology.
Reply: So you are accusing me of lying. Now you can either back up your accusation with facts, retract, or we are done.

Miles: I also note that you have consistently refused to answer simple questions. You keep returning to the same argument that blueprints or recipes require an intelligence therefore life required an intelligence. This argument has been debunked many times. 
Reply: No, it has not. It has not been debunked by science, nor by you, nor by anyone. Science has actually outlined the mostruosity of the problem, which you evidently ignore, which shows, you are not open-minded, nor even thinking, and not even recognizing a fact that even a 12-year-old would recognize based on its obviosity.

A calculation of the probability of spontaneous biogenesis by information theory
Hubert P. Yockey
The Darwin-Oparin-Haldane “warm little pond” scenario for biogenesis is examined by using information theory to calculate the probability that an informational biomolecule of reasonable biochemical specificity, long enough to provide a genome for the “protobiont”, could have appeared in 10^9 years in the primitive soup. Certain old untenable ideas have served only to confuse the solution of the problem. Negentropy is not a concept because entropy cannot be negative. The role that negentropy has played in previous discussions is replaced by “complexity” as defined in information theory. A satisfactory scenario for spontaneous biogenesis requires the generation of “complexity” not “order”. Previous calculations based on simple combinatorial analysis over estimate the number of sequences by a factor of 105. The number of cytochrome c sequences is about 3·8 × 10^61. The probability of selecting one such sequence at random is about 2·1 ×10^65. The primitive milieu will contain a racemic mixture of the biological amino acids and also many analogues and non-biological amino acids. Taking into account only the effect of the racemic mixture the longest genome which could be expected with 95 % confidence in 109 years corresponds to only 49 amino acid residues. This is much too short to code a living system so evolution to higher forms could not get started. Geological evidence for the “warm little pond” is missing. It is concluded that belief in currently accepted scenarios of spontaneous biogenesis is based on faith, contrary to conventional wisdom.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022519377900443  

Miles: It is based on the falsehood that DNA is exactly like a blueprint or instruction manual.
Reply: We are done, Felicia. You have not learned anything during this exchange. Don't forget. This is not about biochemistry. It is about your eternal soul that is at stake. Goodbye. Again. All the best.

How you can get Saved!
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2501-how-you-can-get-saved

Miles: Otangelo,

" I did ask a question in regards to the origin of the information stored in DNA, not the origin of the genetic code. Usually, people that are not trained in biochemistry, conflate the two. Seems to be your case. Secondly, your claim is simply not true. Another sign you don't know what you are talking about."

Now you are just being rude.  The so called information in DNA is only information if it is translated into the genetic code. Without the genetic code it is just a sequence of A's T's G's & C's.   So what do you want to know?  Any random stretch of DNA has just as much "information" as any other random stretch of DNA.  Only when transcribed and/or translated does that sequence acquire any sense. Some DNA sequences are only transcribed and never translated because the RNA is the functional molecule whther that be in ribosomes, tRNA or the various regulatory small or microRNA's.
The point is that if life originated purely naturalistically there is absolutely no requirement for a specific sequence of RNA (it seems probable that DNA came later) to be produced. In the initial stages before life started all that would be necessary is that totally random RNA sequences be produced. As time passed and more chemistry occurred particular sequences that had a functional property would be selected by natural means. For example an RNA that was capable by chance of self-replication would make more copies of itself.  
Of course the recise process by which this or something similar might have occurred is likely to be highly complex and involve multiple steps but there is no a priori reason why it could not happen and there is no requirement for a specific sequence to be made by an intelligence.
I am happy to discuss various ways this or something similar could have occurred if you will approach it with an open mind.

"And I think that you are not actually reading carefully, and trying to understand my replies. The problem does not start with the origin of the right semitic sequence of nucleotides, but with the origin of the nucleotides."

Well you keep pasting links and quotes instead of having a conversation.  The question of how and when individual nucleotides might have been produced is an interesting one but again there is no a priori reason why nucleotides could not have been produced at some point before the last common ancestor came into existence. If I reply to a question about information I assume the question is about sequence because that is where the bulk of the "information" is.

"You have not shown your work, you are hiding, and have not demonstrated in this exchange that you understand the subject, as I expect a biologist, or biochemist would. So I suspect that you are lying."
Rather rude once more.  Please tell me what I have not understood & please have the humility to realise that if I misundertand something you say I could be your fault for being unclear.  I have attached a paper that I helped write in the 1990's when I worked on Hepatitis C virus.  This work involved the synthesis of overlapping peptides from HepC in order to create an epitope map. This shows that I understand just how difficult it is to synthesise proteins in a lab. Side groups need to be protected so that only the desired peptide bond is formed. I am well aware of the challenges that must be met in order to produce DNA RNA protein & lipid in a non living system.

I have to go out now but will address your other points later.

Otangelo, 

"So you are accusing me of lying. Now you can either back up your accusation with facts, retract, or we are done."

No, you can make an untrue statement without lying. Lying is to do with intent to deceive, so you can say something that is untrue while believing it to be true.
The statement "DNA is a blueprint" is untrue even if you believe it to be true. The statement "DNA can be considered similar to a blueprint" is not untrue, though I don't think it is particularly helpful.

"No, it has not. It has not been debunked by science, nor by you, nor by anyone. Science has actually outlined the mostruosity of the problem, which you evidently ignore, which shows, you are not open-minded, nor even thinking, and not even recognizing a fact that even a 12-year-old would recognize based on its obviosity."

Yes it has been debunked many times just search the www for examples. Yes, scientists recognise that there are many obstacles to overcome before the hypothesis of abiogenesis can be anything more than just a hypothesis or collection of hypotheses. I have repeatedly said that I recognise these obstacles and I am open to the possibility that the first life on Earth could have had some intelligent input.   You are the one who refuses to concede even the smallest possibility that you might be wrong.

"We are done, Felicia. You have not learned anything during this exchange. Don't forget. This is not about biochemistry. It is about your eternal soul that is at stake. Goodbye. Again. All the best."

How rude once again.  Otangelo, the question of the origin of life on Earth has nothing to do with eternal souls and everything to do with biochemistry. You yourself are attempting to use biochemistry as an argument. This is the second time you have tried to run away from this conversation with me but it is not me you are running from it is the facts. 

I gave you a chance to gain a greater understanding of the biochemistry of life and its potential origins on Earth. You have chosen to run away from that.   I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt after seeing & hearing your humiliations at the hands of Matt Dillahunty, TJump and others. I thought you were just ill informed about  biochemistry. You clearly are ill informed but sadly you seem to have little interest in becoming better informed. You will not easily find a more patient, tolerant or open-minded person than myself with whom to engage in a purposeful debate about this subject but you need to take the first step of accepting that you could be wrong if we are to continue. Then we can consider the evidence and see where it leads.  I remain available.

Otangelo,

I can't say I'm surprised that you have not responded & apologised but I am disappointed.  I'm not surprised because in my experience every young Earth creationist I have encountered behaves this way. I am disappointed because I thought you might be different. 
If you ever decide that you are ready to evaluate evidence honestly, I am here.

Reply: I was rude with purpose. It was a wake-up call. My rudeness was justified. So there is nothing to apologize for. Unfortunately, it did not provoke what I hoped for: Making you wake up and start thinking. 
That you categorize and put all YEC in a bucket, and attribute to the same behavior because of their views, shows your prejudice. 
As I said before, I am not motivated to continue this conversation. You are blind and unable to recognize that 

- a library index and fully automated information classification, storage, and retrieval program ( chromosomes, and the gene regulatory network )
- complex, codified, specified, complex instructional assembly information stored in the genome and epigenetic codes to make the first living organism
- codes ( the genetic Code/cipher for translation, from digital ( DNA / mRNA ) to analog ( Protein )optimal for allowing additional information within protein-coding sequences more robust than 1 million alternative possible codes, and at least 45 epigenetic codes

-  information transmission systems ( the origin of the genetic code itself, encoding, transmission, decoding, and translation)
- specific building blocks for specific purposes, composed of the right shape and materials ( hardware, that is DNA, RNA, amino acids, and carbohydrates for fuel generation )
- replication/duplication processes ( replication/duplication of the DNA)
- signaling ( the signal recognition particle that directs proteins on taxis, aka kinesins, myosins, on molecular highways, tubulins, to their end destination, using a sophisticated GPS system, the tubulin Code for correct direction to the final destination of proteins) 

none of the above items can be explained by chance, random unguided stochastic events, or evolution since evolution depends on all this, but in our experience, we know that intelligence can create all these things. 


If you are an evangelistic agnostic/atheist, with the purpose to draw me down to your mystery, stay away from me. Time waster.   I cannot imagine a more senseless endeavor, than weak atheists/ agnostics that have nothing else to offer and to do, then engage theists, to express their ignorance. It's as if a homeless, jobless begging hungry vagrant sits on the corner on a street, and sees a successful happy fulfilled person passing by, and trying to convince that person that his state of affairs is attractive and better than anyone else's one..... Go figure.

I gave you more than enough scientific reasons to be a theist. If you eventually come to the conclusion that I am making the most case-adequate, logical, plausible, rational inference, I am willing to continue the conversation. 
If you insist that it is warranted to be an agnostic, make me a favor: Don't take more of my time. Don't reply. I will not respond.  I have better things to do than to waste it with willful ignoramuses.

Limited causal alternatives  do not justify to claim of " not knowing "
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1810-its-not-justified-to-claim-ignorance-limited-causal-alternatives-for-origins-do-not-justify-to-claim-of-not-knowing

Have a nice Sunday. 
Otangelo

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com

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