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Member (Idle past 1509 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Data, Information, and all that.... | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Ooook! Member (Idle past 5845 days) Posts: 340 From: London, UK Joined: |
Hello DNAunion,
As someone is fairly up with molecular biology, but not overly versed in the 'information' argument of ID, can I make an observation? You are using the fact that some DNA in cells today holds a template for proteins and that proteins are required for processes of replication, transcription and translation as evidence that somehow some kind of higher intelligence put meaning into the DNA sequence. Is that the case? If so then you are ignoring (or just plain dismissing) the common view that protolife existed without proteins and there was some sort of DNA/RNA (or possibly just RNA) world of happily self-replicating molecules. In this kind of scenario you wouldn't need to have information - the RNA would be as close to random as you can get. Once you got a piece of RNA that did something useful like help replication or bind an amino acid then you would get selection occurring - but a designer would not be absolutely required would he/she/it? It does seem interesting that a lot of the elements of translation (ie the step required before entering the 'protein-world') are RNA based like the ribosome and tRNA, don't you think?
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Ooook! Member (Idle past 5845 days) Posts: 340 From: London, UK Joined: |
DNAunion,
OK, I'm a bit confused. Forgive me if I am being a bit dense here. I may have made a few assumptions on what I thought you were saying because (as I said) I am new to the concept of 'information' as a concept in evolution. So can you explain it to me? I could say: "Genes contain information required to make the proteins in the cell..." My next question would be: "...and your point is?" What is the next step in your argument once this simple statement is accepted? Please take me there in simple steps as I get easily bogged down if mathematics is going to be involved Thanks Ooook!
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Ooook! Member (Idle past 5845 days) Posts: 340 From: London, UK Joined: |
OK, maybe I'm not making myself too clear. I'll try again if that's alright?
Once you get the general statement of "DNA contains the information required to produce proteins in cells today" how is this milestone relavent to the discussion of evolution and specifically the area of intelligent design? Why do Peter and Crashfrog want to disagree so strongly with you if you just leave the statement there? Surely such a simple statement that can then be interpreted in quite a few ways has no bearing on the debate (on either side). It has to be then qualified: By saying "...and therefore protein sythesis could not have evolved by chance" for example.
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Ooook! Member (Idle past 5845 days) Posts: 340 From: London, UK Joined: |
OK,
Since you made this statement:
Because the rest of the discussion, no matter what side one is on, depends upon all participants agreeing on the foundations that premises and arguments will be based Assume then that I have agreed that there is some kind of information contained in the sequence of DNA. Where do you want to take the argument from there? If I could establish why you would want to establish DNA as information then maybe my questions can be a bit less irritatingly repeatative (as I sure they are at the moment) because I can't see the need to accept that fact as essential for the argument at all.
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Ooook! Member (Idle past 5845 days) Posts: 340 From: London, UK Joined: |
DNAU,
Forgive me if you think I am pestering you, I am only trying to establish your point of view. I am not accusing of having some dark ulterior motive, simply saying that "DNA contains information" doesn't seem to have that much meat on it as an argument. If that is the first rung on your argument, the thing that must be accepted before anything else, I wanted to know what the second rung was. If you just want to have the statement accepted and left there, then my next question was: what's the point of that? I just don't see what the point of it is. As I have already said, I am rather ignorant of why 'information' is so important. If you are participating in other threads that are better suited to debating your position on evolution etc then I apologise - can you please point me to them? The reasons I assumed you wanted to discuss things like this on this thread are 1) the title of this section - Intelligent Design - naturally made me think that you were discussing things based on the existance (or lack) of an Intelligent Designer. 2) You making statements like this:
quote: quote: It is things like this that suggest that you do want to discuss what accepting DNA as data means. I honestly wanted to know what your opinion was as it doesn't look like you are coming from a typical creo/evo standpoint, and I'm just interested. If you do want to just leave it at that then that's fine, I'll let this thread die. If that is the case, see you around.
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Ooook! Member (Idle past 5845 days) Posts: 340 From: London, UK Joined: |
quote: I think the how question is the one that most people would like to see your position on, and if you could clarify it, maybe it would stop the jumping to conclusions that so riles you Please realise I'm not trying to badger you into an answer - you can refuse if you like - I'm genuinely interested in what you think and it might provide a fresh perspective on your arguments
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Ooook! Member (Idle past 5845 days) Posts: 340 From: London, UK Joined: |
Enough of the patronising responses. I've been perfectly civil with you, please try and show me the same consideration.
I'll try and make it clearer for you:
quote: That it is not what I asked you. I accept that you have made this perfectly clear, and agree that you have stated it a number of times, but you always miss out a bit. What I asked you is where you think the information that was in the common ancestor(s) came from. The random product of a DNA/RNA world? UFO's? What?
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Ooook! Member (Idle past 5845 days) Posts: 340 From: London, UK Joined: |
You know the question now so why not answer it ? I know I it put it very clearly last time, so quit stalling. I'll ask it again if you want
Where do you think the information that was in the common ancestor cell(s) came from? That is the question you have not answered - notice the past tense. If you want to answer it this time, then great! If not then get back under your bridge and wait for a bigger billy goat.
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Ooook! Member (Idle past 5845 days) Posts: 340 From: London, UK Joined: |
Ooooh! - So close, but still not there! I believe we can make it
there with just a little more effort. You said this:
Oh, and I have a surprise for you when I do answer that question. And at the big reveal gave me this:
Okay, so what's my position on how the information got into the common ancestor...undirected evolution, of course. The LUCA is believed to have existed long after life originated: long after "random" mutation and natural selection were operating on living entities. I wasn't at all surprised with this response, just disappointed. You keep on urging to use their eyes and read what you say, Iemplore you now to use your brain. Stop the pointless nitpicking and try and see what everybody is getting at. Use a bit of that logic that you claim others lack, and your knowledge of molecular biology to get the gist of my argument. You do have that knowledge don't you? You didn't just sit therewith a pile of biochemistry books and look in the indexes for 'information'? To make it easier for you I'll draw you a little picture. How'sthat? DNA/RNA ---------------------------------> DNA/RNA/Protein Somewhere along the dotted line, your much touted 'information' got into the DNA in order for it to encode for proteins. How do think that happened?
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