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Author Topic:   Codes, Evolution, and Intelligent Design
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 181 of 220 (325441)
06-23-2006 5:25 PM
Reply to: Message 180 by AdminNosy
06-23-2006 5:15 PM


Re: Double Arrrrgh !!!!!
However, perhaps you could explain it at a somewhat less jargon loaded level.
That particular sequence is just a really neat place to start because of the way the nucleotides fit together. Or is that too simple?

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 182 of 220 (325443)
06-23-2006 5:36 PM
Reply to: Message 179 by crashfrog
06-23-2006 4:59 PM


start and stop condons
I appreciate that Crash, but that was not what I was confused about.
We are talking about codes, Evolution and Intellegent Design.
Some folk have been saying that DNA is not a code, yet it incorporates things like start condons and stop condons which seem to me to be essential parts of a code.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 183 of 220 (325444)
06-23-2006 5:58 PM
Reply to: Message 182 by jar
06-23-2006 5:36 PM


Re: start and stop condons
Some folk have been saying that DNA is not a code, yet it incorporates things like start condons and stop condons which seem to me to be essential parts of a code.
I don't see how those are parts of a code. They're arrangements of molecules that, through physical interactions, make certain chemical reactions more energetically advantageous. DNA doesn't "incorporate stop and start codons"; it incorporates nucleotide arrangments that we call start and stop.
It's like saying that sodium and chlorine is the code for the shape of a cube. You could say that, I guess, but it would be only an analogy; and a dubious analogy at best.

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 184 of 220 (325449)
06-23-2006 6:05 PM
Reply to: Message 180 by AdminNosy
06-23-2006 5:15 PM


Re: Double Arrrrgh !!!!!
However, perhaps you could explain it at a somewhat less jargon loaded level.
Well, sure. My description was of the physical processes that actually happen. I used technical language to save space, but of course it's opaque to anybody who isn't familiar with biochemistry.
But if we wanted to talk about it in a way that was easier to understand and communicate, I could use an analogy to things most of us are familiar with and say that one set of three nucleotides is the "code" that begins a polypeptide, and that another set is the "code" that ends a polypeptide. Because most of us are familiar with the idea of codes that do things.
But it doesn't seem to me, at all, that codes are actually being used. What's happening is an extremely complicated set of chemical reactions are forming chains of amino acids.

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Jon
Inactive Member


Message 185 of 220 (325525)
06-24-2006 12:07 AM
Reply to: Message 177 by Percy
06-23-2006 3:04 PM


Re: Percy
Communication
quote:
Communication is the process of sending information to oneself or another entity...
Is the DNA sending information? I would say it isn't. I would say that information is just a result of its existance.
Jon
Edited by Invictus, : fixed code

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tdcanam
Inactive Member


Message 186 of 220 (325532)
06-24-2006 12:16 AM
Reply to: Message 165 by Percy
06-23-2006 11:49 AM


Re: Everyone, esp. Percy
Yes, I am waiting for evolution to become fact. I can wait a very long time. I see no reason to expect proof of a theory if we strive in that direction.
Maybe the word theory is not the one I should be using. Many in the past have gone against the grain. Everyone said the earth was flat, one guy had a theory that the earth was not flat. Steps were taken and it was proven that the idea of a flat earth was in error. The earth was infact a sphere.
Evolution proposes itself as a theory, but one day it will be proven, one way or another.

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Jon
Inactive Member


Message 187 of 220 (325542)
06-24-2006 12:35 AM
Reply to: Message 161 by tdcanam
06-23-2006 11:30 AM


Re: Percy
Rocks do not contain codes. Ask anyone here. Invictus, wanna clarify?
No, rocks don't. But that's about as far as I'm agreeing with you. Information doesn't have to mean anything.
THERE IS ONLY ONE TYPE OF CODE, THAT WHICH IS USED TO COMMUNICATE.
Okay... I'll give you that one too.
Jon

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Jon
Inactive Member


Message 188 of 220 (325552)
06-24-2006 12:51 AM
Reply to: Message 178 by Percy
06-23-2006 3:20 PM


Re: Percy
Message 124
However, by a more widely accepted definition of code, for example, that found at Code - Wikipedia, DNA is a code. So are tree rings and starlight.
DNA is *not* a code, not in the formal sense anyway.
So now... which one will it be?
Jon

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fallacycop
Member (Idle past 5520 days)
Posts: 692
From: Fortaleza-CE Brazil
Joined: 02-18-2006


Message 189 of 220 (325561)
06-24-2006 1:29 AM
Reply to: Message 160 by tdcanam
06-23-2006 11:19 AM


Re: fallacycop
Read all of the posts I composed today. You will see why my reasoning is not circular.
No DNA is not conscious. Yes codes come from conscious minds. DNA was not the encoder. It holds the code.
But, codes denote communication. Period. DNA holds files/specs. Those are photcopied by mRNA and taken to the ribosomes. The photcopies are decoded/read by ribosomes and the ribosomes build the physical reality that the info. stored in DNA represented. The code in DNA that represents an arm is not an arm, it is instructions on how to build an arm. When the specs for an arm are requested, mRNA specifically records specific info on a specific member (the arm) and takes it directly to the ribosome who inturn decodes the info and builds the arm that the code in the DNA specifically represented. Intent. The code was intentionally called for, mRNA intentionally got it and intentionally took it to the ribosome and the ribosome decoded and built the arm that the code specifically instructed.
You haven't shown intent. You assumed it's there. Intent implies a concious mind. But that's the point you are trying to make. therefore your reasoning is circular. Therefore it is fallacious. It is as simple as that.

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 190 of 220 (325612)
06-24-2006 9:07 AM
Reply to: Message 185 by Jon
06-24-2006 12:07 AM


Re: Percy
Percy writes:
Communication
quote:
Communication is the process of sending information to oneself or another entity...
Is the DNA sending information? I would say it isn't. I would say that information is just a result of its existance.
I agree. It's tdcanam who is arguing from a communications standpoint. DNA is an encoding of information.
An encoding of information is one fairly clear level of abstraction for thinking about DNA. I think the mRNA and ribosomes and so forth are suitable analogs for communication channels. And I think both proteins (produced as part of cell metabolism) and more DNA (produced during reproduction) can be viewed as reencodings of the information in the original DNA. Of course, the new DNA is just a reencoded copy, usually an imperfect one, of the original DNA.
And I agree, and I think Modulous does, too, that DNA bears a strong resemblance to the way people tend to encode information, which is as a sequence of symbols. The GACT nucleotide sequences of DNA when grouped into subsequences of 3 to encode for amino acids and into genes to encode for proteins are strong analogs for letters, words and sentences.
But the intent and purpose that tdcanam and other IDists think they see is merely an anthropomorphic projection, and people tend to do this for anything. The intent represented by sunlight is to help plants grow, the intent represented by the moon is to provide light at night and divide the year into months, and the intent represented by DNA is to make proteins and act as the store of heredity. Tdcanam would scoff at the first two, but these are all examples of the same thing, projecting human qualities onto nature.
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 191 of 220 (325625)
06-24-2006 9:53 AM
Reply to: Message 186 by tdcanam
06-24-2006 12:16 AM


Re: Everyone, esp. Percy
tdcanam writes:
Yes, I am waiting for evolution to become fact. I can wait a very long time.
The question was rhetorical. It makes no sense to wait for the theory of evolution to become fact because no theory ever becomes fact. If your criteria for accepting any theory is whether or not it is a fact, then no theory will ever be acceptable to you.
Evolution proposes itself as a theory, but one day it will be proven, one way or another.
Theories are never proven. All scientific theories are always held tentatively, accepted only until modified or superceded. Theories are proposed in order to explain observations (facts). They can be thought of as a generalization from the facts, and ususally the generalization includes implications that makes predictions about things not currently known. Successful predictions increase our confidence in a theory.
Theories must also be capable of falsification. In other words, it must be provisionally possible to find evidence that invalidates the theory. Any framework of understanding built around a body of facts that is not both tentative and falsifiable cannot be considered a scientific theory.
Using the correct definition of theory, we can see that the theory of evolution is a successful theory that has proven itself through correct predictions many times (discovery that there is actually a mechanism of heredity is probably the most significant), and which has never been falsified, such as by the discovery of human and dinosaur remains in the same layer.
Maybe the word theory is not the one I should be using.
Maybe not. Depends upon what you were really trying to say.
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 192 of 220 (325632)
06-24-2006 10:06 AM
Reply to: Message 188 by Jon
06-24-2006 12:51 AM


Re: Percy
Invictus writes:
Message 124
However, by a more widely accepted definition of code, for example, that found at Code - Wikipedia, DNA is a code. So are tree rings and starlight.
DNA is *not* a code, not in the formal sense anyway.
So now... which one will it be?
Well, geez, Jon, what part of "We've been using the word 'code' in a very sloppy way" didn't you understand? The very message you're responding to was a suggestion to move away from the sloppy usage and toward a more precise one.
As I explained in Message 177, we often use the word "code" in an imprecise manner, calling DNA a code or calling a sequence of letters like "qeud fjdl jejc wpqx" a code. But to be precise, they're not codes. They're actually encoded information. Codes are sets of rules for transforming encoded information from one form to another.
To be yet even more clear, here's an example. The message I want to send is "Come home now." This message is encoded information. I want to transform this message to different encoding, let us say "Dpnf ipnf opx". That, too, is encoded information. Neither "Come home now" nor "Dpnf ipnf opx" is a code.
The code itself is actually a set of transformations, and for this example is most easily represented by a table:
  • A => B
  • B => C
  • C => D
  • ...
  • Z => A
The above is the encoding table. In order to decode the information into it's original form we need a complementary decoding table:
  • A => Z
  • B => A
  • C => B
  • ...
  • Z => Y
Clear?
--Percy

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ramoss
Member (Idle past 612 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 08-11-2004


Message 193 of 220 (325635)
06-24-2006 10:23 AM
Reply to: Message 182 by jar
06-23-2006 5:36 PM


Re: start and stop condons
One essential part that the writer of the OP said of a code is that a code has to be 'created by a concious mind'. That is being disagreed with.
Now, if that tidbit is removed, then DNA might be a code. If that tidbit is there, then there is no evidnece that DNA is a code, because there is no evidence it was 'created by a concious mind'.

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ramoss
Member (Idle past 612 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 08-11-2004


Message 194 of 220 (325636)
06-24-2006 10:27 AM
Reply to: Message 191 by Percy
06-24-2006 9:53 AM


Re: Everyone, esp. Percy
Pardon, I will have to disagree with you slightly. The Theory of evolution (describing how and why evolution happens) is a theory that will never be a fact.
The fact that the evoulution happens is observable.
Just like the difference between gravity and the theory of gravity. Throw a rock out the window, it will fall to the ground. THe theory of gravity trys to explain WHY the rock falls to the ground.

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 195 of 220 (325637)
06-24-2006 10:29 AM
Reply to: Message 192 by Percy
06-24-2006 10:06 AM


Re: Percy
So, we might say that the tree rings themselves are not a code; the code is actually the transformation: "1 tree ring = 1 year of growth for that tree"?
Very interesting discussion, and great contributions from Percy, especially.

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