Intelligent Design just a question for evolutionists

Ping me when you actually stop using worthless word salads.Thanks.

Ping me when you've shown where I've written something that is unintelligible to most college-educated, English-speaking audiences. You'd have to do that to back your claim of "word salad."Thx.

You don't have proof-reading and error-correcting mechanisms in volcanology (or geology as a whole), and nor does one find codes in astronomy or chemistry.Chemists don't talk about a nitrogen-chloride circuit that shuttles chloride to nitrogen. And you will not find the scholarly literature discussing how the ocean "senses" the moon and regulates its motion in response, thereby forming tides. Communication (as defined by, e.g., De Loof in "Life is Communication") doesn't happen between the Earth and sun, with a resulting orbit. And you won't read discussions on literal machines ("complex machines," not simple machines, as defined by Bruce Alberts and others) in the discoveries of these scientific disciplines.Yet this kind of language is at the core of both molecular biology and engineering. Writes Alberts (1998):"Why do we call the large protein assemblies that underlie cell function protein machines? Precisely because, like the machines invented by humans to deal efficiently with the macroscopic world, these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts. Within each protein assembly, intermolecular collisions are not only restricted to a small set of possibilities, but reaction C depends on reaction B, which in turn depends on reaction Ajust as it would in a machine of our common experience."Notably, the extensive use of engineering language in biology only began with the birth of the molecular biology and genomics revolution. While words like "machine" or "pump" were used to describe biological features like the human heart, this kind of language becomes much more useful and much more prevalent when we look at the molecular level of life. So the analogy between life and engineering -- fuzzy at best before discoveries in molecular biology -- strengthened, instead of weakened, with further understanding of the cell. Probably. Life is chock-full of modularity. Protein domains function as molecular modules that can be used in a wide array of biological contexts. Look 'em up. "Complexity" is a vague term here, so it'd be useful if you broke down exactly what you mean by "complexity" in the context of engineering and molecular biology. Redundancy, for example, is often considered a form of "complexity," and is frequently cited as an instance of poor engineering.Yet this fundamentally overlooks the nature of scaling laws as they pertain to machine components of nano-size. Thermal bond cleavage, photochemical disruption through energetic photons, and radiation damage all present challenges to the successful functioning of molecular machine components -- while they aren't particularly relevant when it comes to designing macro-scale machine systems.One solution for staving off loss of function in molecular machines due to the above phenomena is to create redundant components (generally using a random-damage model). And this, in turn, results in a significant rise in system complexity. Here, complexity is an engineering solution, so the claim that complexity is "Absolutely not" consistent with engineering principles isn't exactly correct. You have to offer a more nuanced perspective of complexity here in order to support your thesis. Well, I'm not a creationist, so you can leave the theological terminology and assumptions about me at the door.That being said, would you care to explain why so many of the molecular machines which are phylogenetically basal (e.g., F-ATPases, flagella, etc.) actually aren't hodge-podge, jury-rigged designs but instead smack of rational design? Where, exactly, is the "hodge-podge" design in the ur-flagellar core? Where's the kludginess in that bacterial system's architecture and component arrangement?ReferenceAlberts, B., 1998. The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists. Cell.Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.

In other words, you were perfectly clear, if you do say so yourself. In other words, you won't be coaxed into a defense of your ideas but will instead attack those who seek after such a defense, not in any original way, but just throwing their own criticisms back at them in ways that make no sense. Discussion abhors a vacuum. If you have a defense of your idea that life here did not arise naturally but was designed by life from elsewhere that did arise naturally, now's the time. Otherwise we're left to ponder over your meager offerings and make of them what we will. Gosh I'm awful. So what's your evidence again that code-based life couldn't have arisen naturally but non-code based life could? I mean, we're all intimately familiar with "Rebek and colleagues" and that "the analogs of genetic codes, bipartite complementarities found in nucleic acids, and ribosomes are hardly needed for the existence of non-biological autocatalytic systems." Why, I said as much in conversation just the other day.Or putting it another way, your italicized text quoting yourself from Message 61 isn't exactly word salad, but it has the same effect because you just dumped it out there without preamble or explanation. As I said in my reply in Message 63, if you think any of the researchers you named (Rebek, etc.) has evidence supporting your ideas then you should describe it in this thread. We don't want to overcomplicate the discussion, though I guess we'll have to if you insist, but differentiating between designed and non-designed objects with the labels "unnatural" and "natural" is very common to both sides of the debate. I don't think we're talking about the natural versus the supernatural, so there should be no confusion. Well, just let me say that in my opinion your vocabulary is vastly superior to Donald Trump's even if your message is not.--Percy

You're an IDist. The guy you cited, Bruce Alberts, is cited by IDists all over the Internet, but if you read the paper (The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists) he isn't arguing for ID but for a more multidisciplinary approach to cell biology. Like most creationist and IDist citations, it misrepresents Alberts as advocating views he likely finds antithetical. Likely the same is true of other scientists you mentioned, like Margulis, Rebek and Penrose.ID has been around for a long time. It's time to move past analogy and get to the evidence. I don't think DWise1 was arguing that life possesses no modularity but rather noting the lack of strict modularity. What you might like to think of as life's modules probably leak like sieves to provide a host of other related and unrelated side effects. This is consistent with evolution providing solutions that one way or another, and often in unexpected ways, just get the job done. In contrast, a designer would develop neatly and tightly modular designs that are supportable, maintainable and extensible. Complexity is an ID argument. Mike the Wiz introduced the IDist claim that life possesses "specified complexity," and you introduced "irreducible complexity" into the discussion back in Message 33. Discussion of complexity will have to reflect what *you* mean by complexity, because in the absence of ID it would never come up.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.Edited by Percy, : Typo.Edited by Percy, : Another typo.

No. As an engineer, a designer, and a partial micro-biologist (courses taken but no degree), and as the son of a biology professor that I often discussed such things with (before he passed), I can definitively say that this is wrong.There are two things engineers employ that contradict this assertion:1. KISS -- Keep It Simple Stupid -- means no frills or "spandrels" that don't add to the structure or the function. Think of a bicycle in it's simplest form. Nothing that is not needed. 2. Cost-Benefit Analysis -- to ensure the design is cost efficient with little or no wasted time or material.So when I "drill down" to the microbiological level I see waste, and over complication, and more of the impression of systems pieced together ad hoc, jury-rigged to accomplish tasks with little control on timing. The cell design is rather shoddy and make-do, rather than engineered, with a lot of duplication of effort. Which, as you should know, is a logical fallacy. A → B does not mean B → A.Enjoy

Brakes are for sissies.

I'll be responding to Percy et al. shortly, but Taq, this argument of yours is so bizarre. I'm not sure what part about the relationship between atomic theory and the molecular surfaces of nanometer-sized machine components you don't get.

Well we're just on the edge of our seats - what is it about the relationship between atomic theory and the molecular surfaces of nanometer-sized machine components that says ATP is a machine?Your claim to have merely an interesting hypothesis is properly tentative since you offer nothing more than analogy and declarations that some complex molecules "look like" machines, so it makes no sense to suddenly begin arguing as if you had something resembling certainty.--Percy

No, my comment about atomic theory was in response to Taq's apparent surprise that the surfaces of molecular machine components are ball-and-stick-ish. Like duh, what did he/she/it expect? We're dealing with the nano-meter scale here.ATP isn't a machine, by the way. ATP is a molecule. ATP synthases are machines, however. If you dispute that, then you're more than welcome to cite a single scientific paper that argues that ATP synthases aren't machines. Go ahead. I'll be here writing up other responses while you do that little exercise.

More specifically, these molecular systems are machines. They don't just "look like" machines. But who knows? Maybe you've got publications out there in the scientific literature that argue that ATP synthases and other protein systems aren't actual machines. Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.

I say that they're not machines. They're actually musical instruments in the woodwind family. Prove me wrong, find a single scientific paper that argues that they aren't.

Oh my gawd. It must be embarrassing to make that kind of argument. Literally every scientific paper that describes the form and function of ATP synthases is an argument against the thesis that they're musical instruments in the woodwind family.Geez.

Quite so. And to be the originator of it should make you want to hang your head in shame. You mean, in that they all say it's an enzyme?

Replying to both your responses to my Message 114... Where did Taq express surprise at anything you're said? Seemed like all skepticism to me. So in the space of just a few short weeks it's gone from analogy to fact? Golly gee whiz, sometimes the pace of scientific progress just makes one's head spin. Why would any paper argue against an appropriate analogy? Why would I?We need to hear your evidence for why evolution couldn't produce biological molecular machines like ATP synthase, that it didn't evolve but was designed. The Wikipedia article on ATP synthase briefly describes a couple evolutionary possibilities:

quote:

---

The modular evolution theory for the origin of ATP synthase suggests that two subunits with independent function, a DNA helicase with ATPase activity and a H⁺ motor, were able to bind, and the rotation of the motor drove the ATPase activity of the helicase in reverse. This complex then evolved greater efficiency and eventually developed into today's intricate ATP synthases. Alternatively, the DNA helicase/H⁺
motor complex may have had H⁺ pump activity with the ATPase activity of the helicase driving the H⁺ motor in reverse. This may have evolved to carry out the reverse reaction and act as an ATP synthase.

---

The fact that "machine" is a convenient analog is not evidence. An analogy can be the inspiration behind your hypothesis, but it can't be evidence. That you're so insistent that the analogy is a compelling argument for design just makes more obvious the degree to which you're ignoring the only known agent of change, descent with modification followed by selection. You could even skip proving evolution insufficient if you could just produce evidence of some other agent of change.As I'm fond of saying, things that happen leave behind evidence. It is the fingerprints of evolution that are found everywhere in life, not those of some mythical alien race.--Percy