Chaperones and the origin of life
Dada
achieving proper folding. How do these mindless machines know just
what to do? I think it is clear that a great deal of sophisticated
hardware and software design is behind the construction of these tiny
machines. They obviously played important role in the origin of life
because proteins need their help to form properly. So, evolutionists,
do you have any explanation how these chaperones could have formed in
prebiotic conditions?
Boikat
"Dada" <dada...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:afb28c87.04092...@posting.google.com...
The origin of life is an on-going line of research, and whether or not there
are any theories that attempt to explain the processes involved, your
question boils down to an argument of incredulity and/or an argument of
ignorance. In general, just because science does not provide a handy answer
*now*, that does not mean that an answer will never be found (or will be
found), nor does it mean that everyone should throw their hands up in the
air and say "Goddidit!".
Boikat
--
<42><
John Harshman
Dada wrote:
I doubt they did. And you have it wrong. Some proteins need chaperones
to fold properly. Others need chaperones to increase the probability of
folding properly. Still others fold just fine without help, and have no
chaperones. All this refers to the current state of the system. I'm sure
that chaperones are a fairly late development, not associated with the
beginnings of life. Protein sequences and chaperones co-evolved
gradually, as parts of already-existing life. Many proteins that
acquired chaperones became dependent on them to fold properly, when they
had previously been able to fold all by themselves. There is a continuum
(nicely suitable for gradual evolution) between proteins that fold
without chaperones, to those whose folding efficiency is slightly
increased, to those that will not fold properly at all without them.
All this is a just-so story, but that's exactly what's needed to counter
the argument that something is not conceivable.
>
>
Thomas H. Faller
Chaperones also assist proteins which have no appreciable function in the
origin of life. They are mindless machines and they do not "know" what
to do, any more than any single molecule of salt "knows" to line up
with precision with other salt molecules to form a crystal. Proteins are
a component of life precisely because they are molecules with the
mindless flexibility to be useful.
If proteins were "designed", why would they need chaperones to do
their job? Why not just design the job into the protein directly? Chaperones
are powerful evidence for the non-existance of a Designer instead.
Why are you people all so dense?
Tom Faller
Joe W Larson
news:415075AF...@sgi.com...
Excellent counterpoint Tom
--
I'm Joe Larson, and I approve this message
http://www.soundclick.com/joewlarson
There is no "W" in "Progress" - Kerry Edwards 2004
Tracy Hamilton
> achieving proper folding. How do these mindless machines know just
> what to do? I think it is clear that a great deal of sophisticated
> hardware and software design is behind the construction of these tiny
> machines.
Do you have any suggestions as to why the designer(s) was incapable
of solving all protein folding problems, thus leading to various disease
states?
What can I conclude about the capabilities of such a designer - that
he is limited! Is that what you intended?
[snip]
Tracy P. Hamilton
Boikat
"Mike Goodrich" <m...@ip68-107-145-246.hr.hr.cox.net> wrote in message
news:slrncl0m6...@ip68-107-145-246.hr.hr.cox.net...
> mindless-processes-of-the-gaps story - as long as it sounds clever - is
> all that is apparently needed. ;-)
Whereas, with commited creationists, "Goddidit!" is sufficient, so (for
example) illnesses are punishment for sins.
Boikat
Chris Thompson
news:41506A00...@pacbell.net:
Are there organisms with no chaperones?
Chris
--
"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and
then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so
as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry
on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that
sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually
on a battlefield." --George Orwell, 1946, "Under Your Nose"
Milan
It's very clear that chaperones could not have emerged by the blind forces
of randomness, etc, etc, they are too sophisticated and accurate, etc, etc,
and irreducible complexity, etc etc, it is clear that there must have been
an intelligent creator, etc etc, there was clearly this god thing that came
up and poof -created the chaperones, etc etc, and how was god created?, well
this other bigger god came up and poof , created god, etc etc, and how was
the other god created, well...
regards
Milan
Mike Goodrich
You must understand that to the commited naturalist, a good dressed up
mindless-processes-of-the-gaps story - as long as it sounds clever - is
all that is apparently needed. ;-)
cheers,
-Mike
Boikat
"Mike Goodrich" <goodr...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:d92ac81f.0409...@posting.google.com...
And for the commited creationist, "Goddidit!" is the only explaination
needed.
Boikat
--
<42><
Prof Weird
> achieving proper folding. How do these mindless machines know just
> what to do?
Chemistry and physics. Chaperones are the LEAST specific proteins
around - by having low 'specificity', they can bind with (and
'assist') many different proteins.
They are amongst the oldest of proteins (the others being iron-sulfur
proteins), so they may have arisen early.
After all, they don't have to be overly selective as to what protein
they are working with. One hypothesis is that chaperones evolved
during the time that the genetic code was being generated - amino
acids were at first co-factors for RNA and ribozymes. An amino acid
sequence that helps to stabilize either the RNA or other proteins
would grant an advantage to the compartmentalized system that has it.
Selectivity occurs later due to selection.
> I think it is clear that a great deal of sophisticated
> hardware and software design is behind the construction of these tiny
> machines.
'Clear' as in 'it supports my presuppositions that some unknowable
designer exists, and did some complex things I do not wish to
understand' ?
> They obviously played important role in the origin of life
> because proteins need their help to form properly.
Not all proteins do; most can fold properly without assistance, some
have their folding accelerated with the help of chaperones, and some
need them.
> So, evolutionists,
> do you have any explanation how these chaperones could have formed in
> prebiotic conditions?
See above - when the genetic code was evolving (transfer RNAs CAN
self-load, as has been shown experimentally), the amino acids were
most likely cofactors for ribozymes.
The NON-SPECIFIC chaperones helped stabilize the RNA genomes and other
proteins; hence, they were positively selected for. Eventually the
system went to the more stable DNA for 'information' storage, the more
versatile proteins for doing most of the work, with RNA being
relegated to messenger with minor enzymatic roles (the ribosome -
which is composed of RNA and proteins - can still link amino acids
together without its accessory proteins, just much less efficiently,
IIRC.) Because functions can change, 'irreducible complexity' is
avoided, and thus the need to posit some intelligent designer that
MUST NOT be named doing things in undetectable ways is also abrogated.
Milan
You are right. Why let reality get in the way, when gods, angels, and demons
are far more entertaining and colourful? Science has deprived us of all
these fun imaginary beings, and has destroyed our cosy retreat into
comforting infantile fantasies. On top of that it is expensive and consumes
precious resources which could be used to build churches and pay the salary
of thousands of vicars and priests. Who needs science when the magic phrase
"goddidit" has the answer to all the big questions that puzzle mankind?
Imagine a world in which all the books of physics, chemistry, biology, etc
etc, contain only one page, and on this page, in golden characters the line
"goddidit. Praise the Lord". Life would be simple, and there wold be love
among all human beings.
regards
Milan
TomS
<415075AF...@sgi.com>, Thomas H. Faller stated..."
And why design proteins?
Should anyone interrupt and say, "We do not know the ways of
the Lord", let me point out that the Argument From Design is based
upon knowing the ways of design. As Darwin pointed out, when he
was discussing "rudimentary organs" in the next-to-last chapter
of "Origin",
the same reasoning power which tells us plainly
that most parts and organs are exquisitely
adapted for certain purposes, tells us with equal
plainness that these rudimentary or atrophied
organs, are imperfect and useless.
If you accept the Argument From Design, then you should be
willing to live with the consequences of that argument, even if
you don't like the consequences. (I'm not speaking to Thomas,
by the way, I'm speaking to anyone who uses the Argument From
Design.) The same reasoning power which tells us plainly that
proteins are designed, tells us with equal plainness that they
were designed with the need for chaperones.
The Argument From Design depends upon the designers having
to work with certain limitations, one of those limitations being
that they found the world without design not to come up to their
desires. The Argument From Design tells us that there were
designers who *designed* things in a certain way, using tools
available in the material world (like chemical elements, space
and time, the laws of physics and chemistry), rather than simply
said, "Let there be ... and there was ..." (that is, created from
nothing).
--
---Tom S.
"... as Christian theists, holding fast our belief not only that every new
species, but that each individual living organism, originated in a special act
of creation, we have no quarrel with the doctrine of successive evolution of
ancestral germs ..." Francis Bowen, North American Review 129(1879) p. 463
Mike Goodrich
Egregiously false since creationists recognize a wide range and depth
of phenomena for which Goddidit may be the ulimate explanation, but
natural law recognized as the immediate explanation.
OTOH naturalists don't admit to any alien intelligent causation except
perhaps the panspermia crowd.
Boikat
When you get down to it, you just agreed with me, therefore your claim of
"agregiously false" is amusing.
>
> OTOH naturalists don't admit to any alien intelligent causation except
> perhaps the panspermia crowd.
Aside from you're bringing up panspermia, who said anything about aliens?
As far as "naturalists" and any form of intelligent causation as an
explaination of natural phenomena, none have been found.
Boikat
--
<42><
howard hershey
Yes. Proteins interact. But nearly all chaperones are proteins that
evolved much later, long after "prebiotic conditions". Do you somehow
have the delusion that all current proteins had to be formed from
scratch before there could be life?
howard hershey
And, alas, it doesn't meet the "sounds clever" criteria that all good
naturalists require according to mike. It "sounds simple-minded".
> Boikat
fencingsax
No. Big Brother is watching You!
AC
Perhaps you could provide a list.
>
> OTOH naturalists don't admit to any alien intelligent causation except
> perhaps the panspermia crowd.
They don't admit to things for which there is no evidence. That's science.
You should look it up some time, you might find it fascinating.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
"My illness is due to my doctor's insistence that I drink milk, a whitish
fluid they force down helpless babies." - WC Fields
Dada
> The origin of life is an on-going line of research, and whether or not there
> are any theories that attempt to explain the processes involved, your
> question boils down to an argument of incredulity and/or an argument of
> ignorance. In general, just because science does not provide a handy answer
> *now*, that does not mean that an answer will never be found (or will be
> found), nor does it mean that everyone should throw their hands up in the
> air and say "Goddidit!".
And this the famous Naturalism Of The Gaps i.e. NaturalismWillDoIt.
Why should one think that NaturalismWillDoIt is any better than
GodDidIt? If science doesn't provide handy explanation now, it doesn't
mean that some day it will. It is a matter of blind faith either way
and you are always accusing only creationists for making this kind of
lame arguments. Double standard.
Joe Blow
Well we know that the Biblical account, in its own context, does
not fit reality. All of the experimental/observational evidence
points to a natural possibility but we do not yet have a definitive
theorical basis. That is not a double standard. It is one side
meeting a standard and the other failing.
Joe
Hank
>
> "Boikat" <boi...@bellsouthnospam.net> wrote in message news:<hJZ3d.23169$as2....@bignews3.bellsouth.net>...
> > The origin of life is an on-going line of research, and whether or not there
> > are any theories that attempt to explain the processes involved, your
> > question boils down to an argument of incredulity and/or an argument of
> > ignorance. In general, just because science does not provide a handy answer
> > *now*, that does not mean that an answer will never be found (or will be
> > found), nor does it mean that everyone should throw their hands up in the
> > air and say "Goddidit!".
>
> And this the famous Naturalism Of The Gaps i.e. NaturalismWillDoIt.
> Why should one think that NaturalismWillDoIt is any better than
> GodDidIt?
The 'gaps' in your 'Naturalism Of The Gaps' analogy are constantly
shrinking. Look at the state of scientific knowledge 100 years ago, or
just 50 years ago. Science is learning more and more about us - the
world - the universe, on a constant basis.
The difference between your GodDidIt and NaturalismWillDoIt analogies is
that under the GodDidIt model, scientific discovery stagnates since
GodDidIt-therefor-end-of-story. That was the state of knowledge during
the Dark Ages. OTOH, under the NaturalismWillDoIt model there are major
incentives to delve into areas which haven't yet been explained. When
my child gets sick, she gets medicine. When my grandfather (as a child)
got sick, they put a bag of herbs around his neck.
> If science doesn't provide handy explanation now, it doesn't
> mean that some day it will. It is a matter of blind faith either way
> and you are always accusing only creationists for making this kind of
> lame arguments. Double standard.
Not at all. The world view inherent in the GodDidIt model stifles
scientific investigation. Your statement "If science doesn't provide
handy explanation now, it doesn't mean that some day it will" is of
course true. But some day it *may* provide explanations. One of the
few certainties in science is that tomorrow we *will* know more than we
do today.
--
Assimilate a pitiful little species like you? I think not! - Q of Borg
Boikat
Nope. I trust, however, you read the replies of those who are more well
informed than I. I trust also that you will note how well that fits in with
the "argumenet of ignorance" and 'argument of incredulity" you employed.
Boikat
--
<42><
>
Tracy Hamilton
> news:<hJZ3d.23169$as2....@bignews3.bellsouth.net>...
>> The origin of life is an on-going line of research, and whether or not
>> there
>> are any theories that attempt to explain the processes involved, your
>> question boils down to an argument of incredulity and/or an argument of
>> ignorance. In general, just because science does not provide a handy
>> answer
>> *now*, that does not mean that an answer will never be found (or will be
>> found), nor does it mean that everyone should throw their hands up in the
>> air and say "Goddidit!".
>
>
> And this the famous Naturalism Of The Gaps i.e. NaturalismWillDoIt.
No, it isn't.
The "God of the gaps" is based on what is currently not known, which is
always a shrinking set. No positive arguments are based on what is
known, and much of what is known is ignored. A glaring example
is this very thread, where you evidently had no clue that chaperones are
not necessary for all proteins to fold.
Abiogenesis theories are based on an ever expanding knowledge base.
Positive arguments on how it may have happened are based on
experimentation, and tested.
Contrast this approach with the Gaps approach:
Current life has the two following but not sufficient requirements.
Self replication, and catalytic activity.
Gaps approach: Proteins do the catalysis, DNA the replication,
You can't have one without the other, therefore it could not have
arisen!
Scientific approach: Way too much to put here, actually. Check out
RNA world, and mineral templating.
> Why should one think that NaturalismWillDoIt is any better than
> GodDidIt?
Scientists do experiments to test mechanisms.
> If science doesn't provide handy explanation now, it doesn't
> mean that some day it will. It is a matter of blind faith either way
> and you are always accusing only creationists for making this kind of
> lame arguments. Double standard.
Is it really blind faith to place your bets on a method that gives
results, as opposed to one whose advocates completely fail to address the
issues?
You brought up the argument from design for chaperones, but did not seem
interested in discussing why a designer evidently NEEDED to create
them to get proteins to fold properly, and even then it malfunctions.
Tracy P. Hamilton
Matt Silberstein
wrote:
Actually, it is the WeDon'tKnow of the Gaps. What else belongs to the
gaps?
--
Matt Silberstein
Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannonball
Damien Rice
Az_
> And this the famous Naturalism Of The Gaps i.e. NaturalismWillDoIt.
> Why should one think that NaturalismWillDoIt is any better than
> GodDidIt? If science doesn't provide handy explanation now, it doesn't
> mean that some day it will. It is a matter of blind faith either way
> and you are always accusing only creationists for making this kind of
> lame arguments. Double standard.
No double standard at all. We simply state we do not know how it
started out yet. We keep looking and forming theories and testing
them. Thats the process. No one is leaping up and down and claiming
they have the answer. If the truth is that a god started it all off
for some reason then that is where the evidence will lead. But lack
of evidence is not evidence for a god. So we continue to search.
When science cannot come up with an answer it accepts that and
continues looking.
Deal with it. The search for truth is not for the impatient. You
have to have the courage to be able to say "I don't know" sometimes.
Richard Forrest
There is a very simple and fundamental difference:
If God did it, there is no point in doing any more research. If God is
involved in the day-to-day running of the universe, or even gets
involved occasionally in the operations of the universe it means that
the Universe is fundamentally unpredictable.
If, on the other hand, we operate under the assumption that the
properties and behaviour of the Universe can be understood in terms of
qualities and processes which are deterministic, there is a point in
doing research into aspects of the Universe we don't understand.
It's called science. Because we didn't simply accept 'God did it' as
an explanation for disease, we developed medical science. Because we
didn't simply accept that 'God made it that way' as an explanation of
the movement of the stars and planets, we developed the science of
astronomy. Because we didn't simply accept 'God is doing it' as an
explanation for thunder and lightning, we developed the sciences of
meterology and electrical engineering.
You may want to go back to a world-view in which illnesses are God's
punishment for past sins, in which women suffer in child-birth as a
punishment for Eve's sin, in which the sound of thunder is the sound
of God loosing his temper and lighting bolts are his way of raining
destruction on those who offend him: I don't.
RF
Jerry Freedman
Is it really a double standard? You would substitute
"NaturalismWillDoit" which has worked wonderfully so far and which is
understandable with some supernatural intelligence (GodDitit) which no
one can hope to comprehend and for which there is no evidence and no
past history. Further, once this supernatural intelligence is invoked
then no further inquiry is possible and the search for reasonable
explanations is at a dead end.
Von Smith
Actually, no. They are not the same argument at all. Your argument
seems to be that, since we cannot currently explain something
scientifically, that it has no scientific explanation, and hence must
be supernatural. It requires committing to a positive claim about
what lies beyond our current knowledge. Abiogenesis researchers do
not have to do this; he only article of faith they require is that
their research stands a reasonable chance of finding something useful.
And that doesn't even require much in the way of faith, as some of
the research already *has* turned up some interesting leads, about
simple replicating molecules and the evolution of autocatalytic
cycles, about rybozymes and the possibility of an "RNA world", about
the possibility of templating organic polymers on minerals, etc.
It *could* turn out that no plausible scientific explanation for the
origin of life on earth will turn up, but it seems silly to refuse to
look, especially since any insights gained from abiogenesis research
could well have implications for fields such as medicine,
nanotechnology, and space exploration, *even if* it doesn't ever
provide answers for how life as we know it (LAWKI) formed on earth.
The whole point of doing the science is that we *don't* know for sure
what we will find.
Von Smith
Fortuna nimis dat multis, satis nulli.
Eros
As opposed, of course, to a mindless "God-of-the-Gaps" story.
Mike, do you agree with the sentiments expressed in the paragraph
posted by Dada above? Can you see any errors or misconceptions in his
ideas? I count at least four.
EROS.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The public utterances of the top creation 壮cientists' -- together
with their published works, which appear in professedly authoritative
祖reation science' books and journals -- provide unequivocal,
documentable evidence that many of these authors are grossly
incompetent, not only in the area of science on which they expound
without proper credentials, but also in their own professed areas of
scientific and technical expertise. " -- "An Engineer Looks at the
Creationist Movement", by Prof. John W. Patterson, published in
Proceedings of the Iowa Acadamy of Science 89(2):55-58, 1982, is based
on a presentation given at the Iowa Acadamy of Science in 1981.
Eros
> Dada wrote:
>
> > Chaperones are proteins whose function is to assist other proteins in
> > achieving proper folding. How do these mindless machines know just
> > what to do? I think it is clear that a great deal of sophisticated
> > hardware and software design is behind the construction of these tiny
> > machines. They obviously played important role in the origin of life
> > because proteins need their help to form properly. So, evolutionists,
> > do you have any explanation how these chaperones could have formed in
> > prebiotic conditions?
>
> origin of life. They are mindless machines and they do not "know" what
> to do, any more than any single molecule of salt "knows" to line up
> with precision with other salt molecules to form a crystal. Proteins are
> a component of life precisely because they are molecules with the
> mindless flexibility to be useful.
>
> If proteins were "designed", why would they need chaperones to do
> their job? Why not just design the job into the protein directly? Chaperones
> are powerful evidence for the non-existance of a Designer instead.
> Why are you people all so dense?
>
They are dense because ignorance and superstition go hand-in-hand.
EROS.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature,
and it remains premature today." [Isaac Asimov]
Eros
Name one. And then tell us exactly what tests or observations you can
make to determine that this natural phenomena has an "ultimate
explanation" which is supernatural.
> OTOH naturalists don't admit to any alien intelligent causation except
> perhaps the panspermia crowd.
However unlikely it may be, naturalists don't absolutely rule it out,
either.
Why would you even consider a supernatural cause over a naturalistic
one, given the overwhelming scientific evidence for evolution, unless
you had some preconceived notion which was based entirely on religious
faith?
EROS.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Freethinkers reject faith as a valid tool of knowledge. Faith is the
opposite of reason because reason imposes very strict limits on what
can be true, and faith has no limits at all. A Great Escape into
faith is no retreat to safety. It is nothing less than surrender." --
Dan Barker, 'Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist'
(Madison, WI:FFRF, 1992, p. 103.)]
Eros
> > The origin of life is an on-going line of research, and whether or not there
> > are any theories that attempt to explain the processes involved, your
> > question boils down to an argument of incredulity and/or an argument of
> > ignorance. In general, just because science does not provide a handy answer
> > *now*, that does not mean that an answer will never be found (or will be
> > found), nor does it mean that everyone should throw their hands up in the
> > air and say "Goddidit!".
>
>
> And this the famous Naturalism Of The Gaps i.e. NaturalismWillDoIt.
> Why should one think that NaturalismWillDoIt is any better than
> GodDidIt?
All the scientific evidence, for a start. If you can think of any
reason why science should suddenly resort to supernatural explanations
for natural phenomena, I would be very interested to hear it.
> If science doesn't provide handy explanation now, it doesn't
> mean that some day it will. It is a matter of blind faith either way
> and you are always accusing only creationists for making this kind of
> lame arguments. Double standard.
Scientists have evidence and logic to back up their claims...
Creationists do not. All Creationists have is an a_priori_
fundamentalist religious belief into which all scientific evidence and
observations of the universe MUST be forced to fit. I'm afraid that's
not science... even the courts have decided that.
"Creation science is not science. It is a religious crusade, coupled
with a desire to conceal that fact . . . The only inference which can
be drawn is that the Act was passed with the specific purpose by the
General Assembly of advancing religion. . . . It was simply and purely
an effort to introduce the Biblical version of creation into the
public school curricula. . . .
The creationists' methods do not take data, weigh it against the
opposing scientific data, and thereafter reach the conclusions stated
in Section 4(a). Instead, they take the literal wording of the Book of
Genesis and attempt to find scientific support for it." -- Judge
William Overton - McLean v Arkansas, 1981)
When it comes to "lame arguments", Creation 'Science' takes gold medal
in that event!
EROS.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"There is not the slightest possibility that the *facts* of science
can contradict the Bible." -- Dr. Henry Morris (Institute for Creation
Research)
"There is no observational fact imaginable which cannot, one way or
another, be made to fit the creation model." -- Dr. Henry Morris
(Institute for Creation Research)
"No geologic difficulties, real or imagined, can be allowed to take
precedence over the clear statements and necessary inferences of
Scripture." -- Dr. Henry Morris (Institute for Creation Research)
howard hershey
I fully agree that science can only deal with natualistic explanations
that must be supported by (or not contradicted by) natural evidence.
Vague untestable supernatural explanations are inutile, impractical,
and irrelevant explanations in science not because they fail to
explain events but because a vague 'Godiddit' gives a facile
explanation to *any* event for which a proposer makes no independent
testable prediction based on his/her premise of 'godidit'. A vague
'Goddidit' as a response when there are gaps are untestable ideas
precisely because the agent is supernatural and the explanation makes
no testable predictions. [That complaint would not be the case for
the YEC version of 'godidit'. They do make specific testable
predictions based on their literal interpretation of a multiply
translated and transcribed text, like the earth is 4000 years old and
there was a world-wide flood quite recently. That every one of these
predictions is refuted by the evidence of God's nature doesn't seem to
bother them.]
No scientist can declare a vague untestable supernatural explanation
wrong. They can only declare specific testable features of that
explanation wrong. For example, they can declare that there was no
Biblical Flood, unless that Flood also involves God working like a
clever master criminal to hide all evidence of this event that
presumably murdered millions of innocents. When you invoke the
supernatural, you can explain away anything.
I would ask what you think "The Gap" is, in particular, when it comes
to abiogenesis. Does "The Gap" involve a lack of *current* knowledge
of any natural mechanism(s) that *could* work to produce a particular
specific result? Or is "The Gap" a lack of supporting material
evidence to support current (or any alternative) theories or
explanations in the particular example in question? Or is "The Gap"
merely a poorly thought out too-broad question? The genius of the
scientific method is that it doesn't ask too-broad 'ultimate'
questions; it asks the largest *answerable* question.
The scientific method does not throw up its hands and say that because
exactly (every detail) about how abiogenesis occurred on this planet
is an unanswerable question does not mean that science can say
nothing. Science can rule out or allow as reasonable the smaller
*answerable* and *testable* questions: Can the precursor molecules
necessary for forming polymers vital to current life form under
conditions similar to those that existed on the early earth? Can RNAs
have relevant enzymatic activity, thus providing a bridge to the
current RNA-protein enzyme biota? And that is the difference.
Science does not generate the vague counterpart to the IDeologue's
"IDdidit". Scientists never pronounce any vague empty phrase like
"Naturalismdidit" and think that that has any more meaning than
"IDdidit". That is simply projection by creationists who do think
that empty vague phrases have meaning. Science does ask the relevant
currently *answerable* questions about abiogenesis. If life arose
from non-life by natural mechanisms that are testable, what *exactly*,
what steps, would be required for this to occur? And then they ask if
there are ways that those steps could have occurred on the early
earth. This is no different from what all scientists have ever done:
Look to nature rather than belief or text to understand the laws and
mechanisms of God's Nature (or Nature alone, if they don't believe in
God).
John Thomas Grisham
> achieving proper folding. How do these mindless machines know just
> what to do? I think it is clear that a great deal of sophisticated
> hardware and software design is behind the construction of these tiny
> machines. They obviously played important role in the origin of life
> because proteins need their help to form properly. So, evolutionists,
> do you have any explanation how these chaperones could have formed in
> prebiotic conditions?
Eskimos have 100 words for snow.
Chaperones are the people who keep young couples from coupling, which
is the exact opposite effect redefined to have on proteins, as
described above.
Why don't we just redefine science as religion and evolution as YEC
creation? I mean, nothing's sacred, least of all "communication".
Let's just scamble our words, until they're utterly meaningless.
Maybe, there's a shortage of syllables from which to construct new
words! Is that it? Have we run out of syllables?
Let's see... "ab", "ac", "ad"...
Okay! Abacad!
"Abacads are proteins whose function is to assist other proteins..."
Apparently we have enough syllables to construct any new words, we
might need!
So, what's the problem, boys and girls? What is this moronic tendency
to redefine existing words into their opposite meaning? This is
supposed to be science, not Hip Hop slang! I mean, Michael Jackson
told us "bad" was "good", but now he's in court trying to redefine
"child molestation" into "adult supervision". We need to start calling
things what they are and if we don't know what they are, we need to
find new words for them.
Let's have some sympathy for the dictionary editors, who have to keep
track of all this contradictory nonsense.
JTG 9/24/04
Steven J.
"John Thomas Grisham" <jgri...@scu.k12.ca.us> wrote in message
news:1e9d6178.0409...@posting.google.com...
> dada...@hotmail.com (Dada) wrote in message
news:<afb28c87.04092...@posting.google.com>...
> > Chaperones are proteins whose function is to assist other proteins in
> > achieving proper folding. How do these mindless machines know just
> > what to do? I think it is clear that a great deal of sophisticated
> > hardware and software design is behind the construction of these tiny
> > machines. They obviously played important role in the origin of life
> > because proteins need their help to form properly. So, evolutionists,
> > do you have any explanation how these chaperones could have formed in
> > prebiotic conditions?
>
> Eskimos have 100 words for snow.
>
words for "snow" derived from four different roots. So far as I know, none
of the Inuit languages has 100 different words for "snow." Note that
English has multiple words referring to different aspects or types of snow:
one can speak of drifts, or powder, or slush, or the crust on a snowbank,
and so forth.
>
> Chaperones are the people who keep young couples from coupling, which
> is the exact opposite effect redefined to have on proteins, as
> described above.
>
designed to *prevent* the origin of life. But of course the obvious and
essential character of chaperones is that they accompany other people and
assist them in some way (whether the other people wish this assistance or
not). The analogy to chaperone molecules is fairly obvious.
>
> Why don't we just redefine science as religion and evolution as YEC
> creation? I mean, nothing's sacred, least of all "communication".
> Let's just scamble our words, until they're utterly meaningless.
>
precisely because it's hard to draw sharp lines between "science" and
"nonscience," or between "religion" and nonreligious belief systems (note:
"Though no man can draw a stroke between the confines of day and night, yet
light
and darkness are upon the whole tolerably distinguishable," as Edmund Burke
noted). I don't think there's a great deal of danger that someone will read
the word "chaperone" in connection to organic molecules and think, "well,
those must be the molecules that keep proteins out of each others' beds."
>
> Maybe, there's a shortage of syllables from which to construct new
> words! Is that it? Have we run out of syllables?
>
of random syllables ("google" being one obvious exception). We pick a word
for a concept which is similar somehow, and create a new denotation for it.
Or we use a descriptive term (in English, in recent centuries, the tendency
is to use literal or fanciful descriptions in Greek or Latin, e.g.
"television," _Basilosaurus_). This helps people remember the new word and
its correct application; e.g. "chaperone" in reference to molecules would be
expected to refer to a molecule that accompanied others, for some purpose,
whereas "abacad" would be expected to refer to ... well, take your best
guess.
>
> Let's see... "ab", "ac", "ad"...
>
> Okay! Abacad!
>
> "Abacads are proteins whose function is to assist other proteins..."
>
> Apparently we have enough syllables to construct any new words, we
> might need!
>
> So, what's the problem, boys and girls? What is this moronic tendency
> to redefine existing words into their opposite meaning? This is
> supposed to be science, not Hip Hop slang! I mean, Michael Jackson
> told us "bad" was "good", but now he's in court trying to redefine
> "child molestation" into "adult supervision". We need to start calling
> things what they are and if we don't know what they are, we need to
> find new words for them.
>
> Let's have some sympathy for the dictionary editors, who have to keep
> track of all this contradictory nonsense.
>
>
> JTG 9/24/04
>
tinyurl.com/uh3t
> Chaperones are proteins whose function is to assist other proteins in
> achieving proper folding.
Only in current/recent living cells, as far back as prokaryotes as we
currently understand them existed. But in your followup below you are
talking about a time that might have been before any such existed.
> How do these mindless machines know just what to do?
The same as any other functional part of a living cell: DNA codes for
their structure, and from structure comes function. They don't *KNOW*
anything, so your question is nonsense. They simply follow the rules of
chemistry and do whatever their structure determines they do. How does
sulfuric acid *KNOW* how to neurralize sodium hydroxide? It doesn't, it
just naturally does what it does without KNOWing anything anything
about what it's doing.
> I think it is clear that a great deal of sophisticated hardware and
> software design is behind the construction of these tiny machines.
It depends on your definition of "design". If you simply mean that
there's a rather complicated blueprint that specifies the structure of
these chaperone chemicals, then yes that's true. But there was no
conscious design, it just happened by mutation and natural selection,
and the current structure of these chaperones is just a chance result
of evolution, it could have turned out any of a gazillion other ways
that also would have worked more or less equally well, but by chance it
came out one way instead of another. I'm going to mess on the keyboard:
kjf chgjkwhgcnkrjdh
So can you please explain why that particular sequence of letters came
out from my messing on my keyboard, instead of any of millions of
alternatives such as
fgjo;sjnh;bjf
or
fdkhjkashlghdf
which were equally likely given the experimental situation I used?
> They obviously played important role in the origin of life because
> proteins need their help to form properly.
I disagree almost completely. You have not established that proteins as
we currently know them had anything whatsoever to do with the origin of
life. More likely, proteins of modern kind came only long after
polypeptides in general were common in life, and those in turn came
only long after life had already started using some non-polypeptide
chemistry.
> So, evolutionists, do you have any explanation how these chaperones
> could have formed in prebiotic conditions?
Your question is premature. First you must establish that prebiotic
conditions actually had modern-style proteins and chaperones to help
them fold, which I strongly believe is not the case so your question is
moot. Now if you can find any one evolutionist who actually believes
the silly premise you make, ask *that* person to justify his theory.
But asking the rest of us to justify a theory we don't believe is even
possible much less likely, is asking a stupid question, making you look
like nothing except a troll.
Did you see the "just so stories" I posted a few months ago, proposing
chemical catalyst cycles as the first replicators, and proposing at one
time a mix of different such replicators on a lipid bubble as the first
genome capable of mutation and hence evoution, and proposing at another
time a way that a single catalytic-cycle replicator could individually
mutate by doubling the cycle length via associated metal ions? What did
you think of that idea of how life and evolution started?
tinyurl.com/uh3t
> And this the famous Naturalism Of The Gaps i.e. NaturalismWillDoIt.
> Why should one think that NaturalismWillDoIt is any better than
> GodDidIt?
A priori, no reason at all, so you have a good initial point, but...
> If science doesn't provide handy explanation now, it doesn't mean
> that some day it will. It is a matter of blind faith either way and
> you are always accusing only creationists for making this kind of
> lame arguments. Double standard.
If we were just speculating out of our heads, without any evidence of
past reputation of the two methods, indeed there'd be no reason to pick
one or the other. But over the past centuries, natural explanations
have solved many many problems, for example:
Natural explanations ... Problems solved
Newton's laws of Orbits of planets around Sun, orbits of satellites
motion and gravity around planets, trajectories of spacecraft,
paths of comets, orbits of asteroids, orbits of
multiple star systems, rotation of planets,
rotation of neutron-star pulsars, operation of
mechanical devices we build, operation of living
mecanical systems such as arms and legs.
Maxwell's formulae for Static electricity attracting bits of tissue,
electricity/magnetism operation of motors and generators and electromag-
nets, how electric circuit components work.
Chemical knowledge How acids and bases react, how redox works,
how hydrogen and sulfur bonds work, how covalent
bonds work.
Quantum mechanics, Angles of various orbital which establish angles
and electron capture/ of covalent bonds, how transistors work, how
escape photoelectric devices work, how light emitting
diodes and firefly-light-emitters work, deeper
understanding of earlier chemical knowledge.
As far as I know, faith/religion hasn't solved even one problem in all
the thousands of years it had to try. Can you name even one problem
solved by faith/religion, where it explains how something works, and
allows the results of experiments to be predicted accurately?
Accordingly the reputations for natural explanations and faith/religion
are totally different, and whenever there's an unsolved problem about
the observable world, such as how some feature of a lifeform might have
evolved, we expect a natural explanation to eventually succeed, whereas
we consider it rather unlikely that any faith/religion-based
explanation will ever succeed. You might argue there's always a first
time, but that's only true if there is any time. If there is never a
time for some class of things, then there isn't any first time of such
class. I predict the Sahara will freeze over before any faith/religion
solution will occur. Probably our Sun will die and become a white dwarf
also. Maybe even protons will all decay too.
So put up or shut up: Name one real problem that faith/religion has
ever solved, told us how something works.
John Wilkins
> Normally, when a noun is need for a new concept, we don't just coin it out
> of random syllables ("google" being one obvious exception).
Nor here. The founders of Google chose it from "googol".
--
John S. Wilkins jo...@wilkins.id.au
web: www.wilkins.id.au blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com
God cheats
r norman
Wilkins) wrote:
>Steven J. <sjt195...@nts.link.net.INVALID> wrote:
>
>> Normally, when a noun is need for a new concept, we don't just coin it out
>> of random syllables ("google" being one obvious exception).
>
>Nor here. The founders of Google chose it from "googol".
The headquarters of the company is even called googleplex, derived
from googolplex.
Google on googol, and check out Kasner and Newman.
Steven J.
"John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
news:1gkojj7.ifvkcuav6pyyN%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> Steven J. <sjt195...@nts.link.net.INVALID> wrote:
>
> > Normally, when a noun is need for a new concept, we don't just coin it
out
> > of random syllables ("google" being one obvious exception).
>
> Nor here. The founders of Google chose it from "googol".
>
syllables. I assumed the search engine was named for it; I didn't notice
that they'd changed the spelling.
>
> --
> John S. Wilkins jo...@wilkins.id.au
> web: www.wilkins.id.au blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com
>
> God cheats
>
fencingsax
Since when in the hell is google a new word? I thought it was a one
with a hundred zeroes after it? In other words a hell of a lot of
stuff. like websites. Which is what google is initially about. They
didn't create the word google. They used it ina new context
r norman
The point is that "googol" is, in fact, a new word coined by Edward
Kasner's nine year old nephew to be used in Kasner and Newmans book
"Mathematics and the Imagination".
Von Smith
> Steven J. <sjt195...@nts.link.net.INVALID> wrote:
>
> > Normally, when a noun is need for a new concept, we don't just coin it out
> > of random syllables ("google" being one obvious exception).
>
> Nor here. The founders of Google chose it from "googol".
They were obviously loost souls.
Frank J
Unfortunately for you it is the pseudoscientific anti-evolutionists
who seek a double standard, to bolster their false dichotomy and
conflation of evolution and abiogenesis. Mainstream science admits
that there is not yet a theory of abiogenesis, but such theory (*how*
it occurred, not whether it occured, which is true by definition) is
unnecessary for evolution to be supported, because evolution takes
life as a given. The supposed alternates that creationists and IDers
hint about (but dare not detail) are mostly all abiogenesis, so those
"theories" do need a theory of abiogenesis.
Whether a designer did it or not, the explanation of *how* would be
the same, and would sound "naturalistic." While there is yet no theory
of abiogenesis, and there are also missing details about the
mechanisms of evolution, especially during the Precambrian, mainstream
scientists are working toward better answers. Anti-evolutionists,
OTOH, do nothing but spin endless misleading incredulity arguments.
They don't work to close the gaps, they work to close inquiry.
"NaturalismWillDoIt" does not rule out the possibility of a
Creator/designer. It only claims that a more detailed explanation
awaits us.