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On 22/03/2022 17:18, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Tue, 22 Mar 2022 16:54:27 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 22/03/2022 00:01, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 21 Mar 2022 21:18:31 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 21/03/2022 20:47, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 21 Mar 2022 19:45:04 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 21/03/2022 17:01, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
Right - so when you say \"Darwinism is hand-waving. It\'s just another
anti-faith faith\", you weren\'t actually dismissing it?
It\'s possible but unlikely that our DNA life evolved that way.
You have no basis for determining the probabilities here.
I read books authored by biochemists. Their numbers look reasonable.
A protein is a string of amino acids, typically a chain of 30 or more.
There are 20 available amino acids used to build proteins.
A cell needs thousands of proteins to work and reproduce. Many have no
conceivable incremental evolutionary path to work; subsections are
useless.
Do the math.
What the *bleep* are you talking about? Only the \"God did it\" lot think
scientific abiogenesis hypothesis suggest that a modern day cell turned
up fully functional, by chance in a slime pool. I keep telling you that
you have /no/ idea what the RNA World hypothesis is, or any other aspect
of abiogenesis research, or how basic science works. You think it\'s an
insult - it\'s simple fact, and you prove it again and again.
On 23/03/22 14:43, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 06:13:07 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
On a sunny day (Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:48:30 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in
h7kk3hht887bu7jotdp2a7q4punnbounve@4ax.com>:
There may be things that we will never understand. The origin of the
universe. The origin of life. Where consciousness comes from.
Certainly nobody understands them now, so reasonable open-mindedness
is not a failing to be mocked.
As to evolution, would you ever expect that an ape-like colony as we are
would self evolve to produce microchips? Communicate via radio?
It is the same mechanism at work!
Darwinian incremental evolution happens in plain sight, although it is
surely more efficient than random mutation and natural selection.
What do you think Darwinian evolution is, if not random mutation
plus natural selection?
The big unknown is how the first, incredibly complex, reproducing
DNA-based cells came to be, and survived.
That key question is currently not well answered, but several
plausible natural mechanisms have been suggested.
I have faith that mankind will continue to refine both
understanding and questions about that topic.
That couldn\'t have been an incremental process.
Why not?
On 23/03/2022 15:39, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 07:34:20 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 00:50, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 00:19:51 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 22/03/22 22:48, John Larkin wrote:
There may be things that we will never understand. The origin of the
universe. The origin of life.
Saying \"God created it\", or anything equivalent, is
not understanding. It is avoiding understanding.
I never said that.
Several people have pointed out that you have repeatedly
said thing that /are/ *equivalent*. They have given
reasons for the equivalence.
Cite a statement where I said that God created life on earth.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Didit_fallacy
Saying aliens might have created life on earth, or robots from space, or
some kind of god, \"intelligent design\", or that DNA designed itself -
it\'s all the same pointless non-argument. As Tom says, its trying to
avoid understanding - avoiding thought, learning, experimentation.
On 23/03/22 14:43, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 06:13:07 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
On a sunny day (Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:48:30 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in
h7kk3hht887bu7jotdp2a7q4punnbounve@4ax.com>:
There may be things that we will never understand. The origin of the
universe. The origin of life. Where consciousness comes from.
Certainly nobody understands them now, so reasonable open-mindedness
is not a failing to be mocked.
As to evolution, would you ever expect that an ape-like colony as we are
would self evolve to produce microchips? Communicate via radio?
It is the same mechanism at work!
Darwinian incremental evolution happens in plain sight, although it is
surely more efficient than random mutation and natural selection.
What do you think Darwinian evolution is, if not random mutation
plus natural selection?
The big unknown is how the first, incredibly complex, reproducing
DNA-based cells came to be, and survived.
That key question is currently not well answered, but several
plausible natural mechanisms have been suggested.
I have faith that mankind will continue to refine both
understanding and questions about that topic.
That couldn\'t have been an incremental process.
Why not?
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:34:55 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 22/03/2022 17:18, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Tue, 22 Mar 2022 16:54:27 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 22/03/2022 00:01, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 21 Mar 2022 21:18:31 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 21/03/2022 20:47, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 21 Mar 2022 19:45:04 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 21/03/2022 17:01, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
Right - so when you say \"Darwinism is hand-waving. It\'s just another
anti-faith faith\", you weren\'t actually dismissing it?
It\'s possible but unlikely that our DNA life evolved that way.
You have no basis for determining the probabilities here.
I read books authored by biochemists. Their numbers look reasonable.
A protein is a string of amino acids, typically a chain of 30 or more.
There are 20 available amino acids used to build proteins.
A cell needs thousands of proteins to work and reproduce. Many have no
conceivable incremental evolutionary path to work; subsections are
useless.
Do the math.
What the *bleep* are you talking about? Only the \"God did it\" lot think
scientific abiogenesis hypothesis suggest that a modern day cell turned
up fully functional, by chance in a slime pool. I keep telling you that
you have /no/ idea what the RNA World hypothesis is, or any other aspect
of abiogenesis research, or how basic science works. You think it\'s an
insult - it\'s simple fact, and you prove it again and again.
OK, you can\'t do math.
On 23/03/2022 17:02, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 23/03/22 14:43, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 06:13:07 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
On a sunny day (Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:48:30 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in
h7kk3hht887bu7jotdp2a7q4punnbounve@4ax.com>:
There may be things that we will never understand. The origin of the
universe. The origin of life. Where consciousness comes from.
Certainly nobody understands them now, so reasonable open-mindedness
is not a failing to be mocked.
As to evolution, would you ever expect that an ape-like colony as we are
would self evolve to produce microchips? Communicate via radio?
It is the same mechanism at work!
Darwinian incremental evolution happens in plain sight, although it is
surely more efficient than random mutation and natural selection.
What do you think Darwinian evolution is, if not random mutation
plus natural selection?
You are making an unwarranted assumption here, by your use of the word
\"think\" in the question.
The big unknown is how the first, incredibly complex, reproducing
DNA-based cells came to be, and survived.
That key question is currently not well answered, but several
plausible natural mechanisms have been suggested.
I have faith that mankind will continue to refine both
understanding and questions about that topic.
That couldn\'t have been an incremental process.
Why not?
Because John says it couldn\'t - because he read a book once that said
DNA-based cells are \"irreducibly complex\". He doesn\'t know what the
phrase means, but it sounded right to him - after all, it was an \"idea\",
and all ideas are holy.
Of course you and I and the world of science knows that is bollocks.
The article linked at the start of this thread showed reproducing
interacting RNA, and the Darwinian evolution of DNA-based cells from
RNA-based cells is quite easy to imagine.
On 23/03/22 14:39, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 07:34:20 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 00:50, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 00:19:51 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 22/03/22 22:48, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 22 Mar 2022 22:13:21 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 22/03/22 19:02, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 22 Mar 2022 16:13:27 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 21/03/22 23:01, John Larkin wrote:
Our cells are \"irreducibly complex.\"
That\'s a meaningless phrase and concept.
It says and means exactly that a mechanism is complex and simpler
subsets don\'t work. It\'s a common concept.
If you know of a cell replication mechanism that is simpler than the
one we have, please tell us about it. I especially like that 10,000
RPM DNA unwinder thing, and the bit that copies one strand in segmemts
in reverse. And the funny things that walk around carrying things.
Ah. You mean the cellular reproduction mechanism is
irreducibly complex.
That too.
It is as vacuous as the concept we saw as kid, that
the key living part of the cell is \"protoplasm\".
You should have more faith in mankind\'s intellect.
You should be more polite.
You should have more faith in mankind\'s intellect.
It exceeds yours (and mine).
There may be things that we will never understand. The origin of the
universe. The origin of life.
Saying \"God created it\", or anything equivalent, is
not understanding. It is avoiding understanding.
I never said that.
Several people have pointed out that you have repeatedly
said thing that /are/ *equivalent*. They have given
reasons for the equivalence.
Cite a statement where I said that God created life on earth.
And \"several people\" ? That\'s your call to authority? Several people
on usenet!
No \"authority\" is required, merely reading your posts
is sufficient.
\"Several people\" merely serves to show that my reading
of your posts isn\'t completely wrong, no more.
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:02:14 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 14:43, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 06:13:07 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
On a sunny day (Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:48:30 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in
h7kk3hht887bu7jotdp2a7q4punnbounve@4ax.com>:
There may be things that we will never understand. The origin of the
universe. The origin of life. Where consciousness comes from.
Certainly nobody understands them now, so reasonable open-mindedness
is not a failing to be mocked.
As to evolution, would you ever expect that an ape-like colony as we are
would self evolve to produce microchips? Communicate via radio?
It is the same mechanism at work!
Darwinian incremental evolution happens in plain sight, although it is
surely more efficient than random mutation and natural selection.
What do you think Darwinian evolution is, if not random mutation
plus natural selection?
Probably something more like AI, prototyping more complex things than
random base-pair damage.
If some programmers can claim they have AI after a few years of
coding, imagine what a planet full of cells can invent in a few
billion years.
A folded, squirming protein sounds like a pretty good
cross-correlation machine. Looking for viable protein sequences could
be done by some better way than seeing if random mistakes help
offspring survive.
In other words, evolution evolves, even if neo-Darwinists don\'t want
it to.
The big unknown is how the first, incredibly complex, reproducing
DNA-based cells came to be, and survived.
That key question is currently not well answered, but several
plausible natural mechanisms have been suggested.
But not demonstrated. And other suggestions are mocked.
I have faith that mankind will continue to refine both
understanding and questions about that topic.
That couldn\'t have been an incremental process.
Why not?
Because a minimal DNA reproduction mechanism needs complex-programmed
DNA surrounded by complex support mechanisms. None of that is useful
until it all works.
The RNA-world hypothesis says that RNA-based cells came first, and DNA got grafted on later. The silicon that replaced to the
RNA-germanium, or the DNA hard disk that replaced the RNA floppy.
The first cells won\'t have been incredibly complex.
https://www.wired.com/2016/03/mystery-minimal-cell-craig-venters-new-synthetic-life-form/
Craig Venter got his \"minimal\" cells down to 473 genes (we\'ve got about 20,000), but we don\'t know what 149 of them do. Seventy
of them sort of make sense, but the last 79 are a mystery, at least at the moment.
On 23/03/22 16:30, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:02:14 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 14:43, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 06:13:07 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
On a sunny day (Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:48:30 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in
h7kk3hht887bu7jotdp2a7q4punnbounve@4ax.com>:
There may be things that we will never understand. The origin of the
universe. The origin of life. Where consciousness comes from.
Certainly nobody understands them now, so reasonable open-mindedness
is not a failing to be mocked.
As to evolution, would you ever expect that an ape-like colony as we are
would self evolve to produce microchips? Communicate via radio?
It is the same mechanism at work!
Darwinian incremental evolution happens in plain sight, although it is
surely more efficient than random mutation and natural selection.
What do you think Darwinian evolution is, if not random mutation
plus natural selection?
Probably something more like AI, prototyping more complex things than
random base-pair damage.
If some programmers can claim they have AI after a few years of
coding, imagine what a planet full of cells can invent in a few
billion years.
A folded, squirming protein sounds like a pretty good
cross-correlation machine. Looking for viable protein sequences could
be done by some better way than seeing if random mistakes help
offspring survive.
In other words, evolution evolves, even if neo-Darwinists don\'t want
it to.
That might be a form of evolution, but it isn\'t Darwinian evolution.
Darwinian evolution /is/ random mutation plus natural selection.
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:39:50 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 16:30, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:02:14 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 14:43, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 06:13:07 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
On a sunny day (Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:48:30 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in
h7kk3hht887bu7jotdp2a7q4punnbounve@4ax.com>:
There may be things that we will never understand. The origin of the
universe. The origin of life. Where consciousness comes from.
Certainly nobody understands them now, so reasonable open-mindedness
is not a failing to be mocked.
As to evolution, would you ever expect that an ape-like colony as we are
would self evolve to produce microchips? Communicate via radio?
It is the same mechanism at work!
Darwinian incremental evolution happens in plain sight, although it is
surely more efficient than random mutation and natural selection.
What do you think Darwinian evolution is, if not random mutation
plus natural selection?
Probably something more like AI, prototyping more complex things than
random base-pair damage.
If some programmers can claim they have AI after a few years of
coding, imagine what a planet full of cells can invent in a few
billion years.
A folded, squirming protein sounds like a pretty good
cross-correlation machine. Looking for viable protein sequences could
be done by some better way than seeing if random mistakes help
offspring survive.
In other words, evolution evolves, even if neo-Darwinists don\'t want
it to.
That might be a form of evolution, but it isn\'t Darwinian evolution.
Darwinian evolution /is/ random mutation plus natural selection.
Darwin himself didn\'t know the source of variation.
The neo-Darwinists
have insisted that it must be random mutations to genes.
They are also
hostile to any Lamarckian effects, which could surely be useful thus
encouraged by evolution.
Part of the hostility to alternate ideas is the need to not be accused
of even slightly trending in the direction of causation or even
complexity. That\'s a barbed-wire fence against unpermitted thinking.
Being in the design business, I am fascinated by how common is
hostility to playing with ideas.
Non-Darwinian evolution, jumping genes, epigenetics were not much
welcomed.
I need to read this:
https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Neo-Darwinism-Introduction-Evolutionary-Paradigm/dp/012350080X
Just ordered it.
On 23/03/22 16:09, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:34:55 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 22/03/2022 17:18, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Tue, 22 Mar 2022 16:54:27 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 22/03/2022 00:01, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 21 Mar 2022 21:18:31 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 21/03/2022 20:47, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 21 Mar 2022 19:45:04 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 21/03/2022 17:01, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
Right - so when you say \"Darwinism is hand-waving. It\'s just
another
anti-faith faith\", you weren\'t actually dismissing it?
It\'s possible but unlikely that our DNA life evolved that way.
You have no basis for determining the probabilities here.
I read books authored by biochemists. Their numbers look reasonable.
A protein is a string of amino acids, typically a chain of 30 or more.
There are 20 available amino acids used to build proteins.
A cell needs thousands of proteins to work and reproduce. Many have no
conceivable incremental evolutionary path to work; subsections are
useless.
Do the math.
What the *bleep* are you talking about? Only the \"God did it\" lot think
scientific abiogenesis hypothesis suggest that a modern day cell turned
up fully functional, by chance in a slime pool. I keep telling you that
you have /no/ idea what the RNA World hypothesis is, or any other aspect
of abiogenesis research, or how basic science works. You think it\'s an
insult - it\'s simple fact, and you prove it again and again.
OK, you can\'t do math.
Your arithmetic is probably right, but it is incorrect maths.
Correct maths starts with formulating the relevant model.
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 17:02:43 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 23/03/2022 15:39, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 07:34:20 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 00:50, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 00:19:51 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 22/03/22 22:48, John Larkin wrote:
There may be things that we will never understand. The origin of the
universe. The origin of life.
Saying \"God created it\", or anything equivalent, is
not understanding. It is avoiding understanding.
I never said that.
Several people have pointed out that you have repeatedly
said thing that /are/ *equivalent*. They have given
reasons for the equivalence.
Cite a statement where I said that God created life on earth.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Didit_fallacy
OK, you can\'t cite any such thing that I said. Maybe because I never
said it.
Saying aliens might have created life on earth, or robots from space, or
some kind of god, \"intelligent design\", or that DNA designed itself -
it\'s all the same pointless non-argument. As Tom says, its trying to
avoid understanding - avoiding thought, learning, experimentation.
Tell us about your biology experiments.
I think you are just another twitter-level flamer. Do you still work?
On 23/03/22 16:30, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
Because a minimal DNA reproduction mechanism needs complex-programmed
DNA surrounded by complex support mechanisms. None of that is useful
until it all works.
The \"intelligent designer\" fraternity used to claim that
about eyes, livers, etc.
We know better now.
On 23/03/22 17:24, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:39:50 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 16:30, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:02:14 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 14:43, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 06:13:07 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
On a sunny day (Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:48:30 -0700) it happened John
Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in
h7kk3hht887bu7jotdp2a7q4punnbounve@4ax.com>:
There may be things that we will never understand. The origin of
the
universe. The origin of life. Where consciousness comes from.
Certainly nobody understands them now, so reasonable
open-mindedness
is not a failing to be mocked.
As to evolution, would you ever expect that an ape-like colony as
we are
would self evolve to produce microchips? Communicate via radio?
It is the same mechanism at work!
Darwinian incremental evolution happens in plain sight, although
it is
surely more efficient than random mutation and natural selection.
What do you think Darwinian evolution is, if not random mutation
plus natural selection?
Probably something more like AI, prototyping more complex things than
random base-pair damage.
If some programmers can claim they have AI after a few years of
coding, imagine what a planet full of cells can invent in a few
billion years.
A folded, squirming protein sounds like a pretty good
cross-correlation machine. Looking for viable protein sequences could
be done by some better way than seeing if random mistakes help
offspring survive.
In other words, evolution evolves, even if neo-Darwinists don\'t want
it to.
That might be a form of evolution, but it isn\'t Darwinian evolution.
Darwinian evolution /is/ random mutation plus natural selection.
Darwin himself didn\'t know the source of variation.
Correct - as illustrated by the sentence \"Darwinian evolution
is random mutation plus natural selection\".
The neo-Darwinists
have insisted that it must be random mutations to genes.
We have subsequently discovered genes (and more) as the
mechanism of heredity. Random changes are a /sufficient/
mechanism for Darwinian evolution, even though \"intelligent
designer\" fraternity can\'t get their heads around it.
They are also
hostile to any Lamarckian effects, which could surely be useful thus
encouraged by evolution.
No mechanism has been discovered, and it is not /necessary/
for Darwinian evolution.
Part of the hostility to alternate ideas is the need to not be accused
of even slightly trending in the direction of causation or even
complexity. That\'s a barbed-wire fence against unpermitted thinking.
The hostility is against alternate ideas that have already
been considered in detail, and found wanting.
Alternate ideas - when they make predict and explain new
effects - are sought after, since they can lead to reward
and recognition.
Having said that, they may take a generation to become
established wisdom, and that\'s no bad thing.
Being in the design business, I am fascinated by how common is
hostility to playing with ideas.
Irrelevant.
Non-Darwinian evolution, jumping genes, epigenetics were not much
welcomed.
Indeed. But where they are needed to explain effects, they
are acknowledged and used.
I need to read this:
https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Neo-Darwinism-Introduction-Evolutionary-Paradigm/dp/012350080X
Just ordered it.
You need to persevere with trying to understand the
subtle arguments and refutations in \"The Blind Watchmaker\".
You already possess it.
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:02:14 +0000, Tom Gardner
spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 14:43, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
The big unknown is how the first, incredibly complex, reproducing
DNA-based cells came to be, and survived.
That key question is currently not well answered, but several
plausible natural mechanisms have been suggested.
But not demonstrated. And other suggestions are mocked.
That couldn\'t have been an incremental process.
Why not?
Because a minimal DNA reproduction mechanism needs complex-programmed
DNA surrounded by complex support mechanisms. None of that is useful
until it all works.
On 23/03/2022 18:46, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 23/03/22 17:24, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:39:50 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 16:30, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:02:14 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 14:43, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 06:13:07 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
On a sunny day (Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:48:30 -0700) it happened John
Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in
h7kk3hht887bu7jotdp2a7q4punnbounve@4ax.com>:
There may be things that we will never understand. The origin of
the
universe. The origin of life. Where consciousness comes from.
Certainly nobody understands them now, so reasonable
open-mindedness
is not a failing to be mocked.
As to evolution, would you ever expect that an ape-like colony as
we are
would self evolve to produce microchips? Communicate via radio?
It is the same mechanism at work!
Darwinian incremental evolution happens in plain sight, although
it is
surely more efficient than random mutation and natural selection.
What do you think Darwinian evolution is, if not random mutation
plus natural selection?
Probably something more like AI, prototyping more complex things than
random base-pair damage.
If some programmers can claim they have AI after a few years of
coding, imagine what a planet full of cells can invent in a few
billion years.
A folded, squirming protein sounds like a pretty good
cross-correlation machine. Looking for viable protein sequences could
be done by some better way than seeing if random mistakes help
offspring survive.
In other words, evolution evolves, even if neo-Darwinists don\'t want
it to.
That might be a form of evolution, but it isn\'t Darwinian evolution.
Darwinian evolution /is/ random mutation plus natural selection.
Darwin himself didn\'t know the source of variation.
Correct - as illustrated by the sentence \"Darwinian evolution
is random mutation plus natural selection\".
Darwin didn\'t know how inherited traits were passed on, or how mutations
occurred. All he knew - and all he needed to know - was that traits
/were/ inherited, and random mutations /do/ occur.
The neo-Darwinists
have insisted that it must be random mutations to genes.
We have subsequently discovered genes (and more) as the
mechanism of heredity. Random changes are a /sufficient/
mechanism for Darwinian evolution, even though \"intelligent
designer\" fraternity can\'t get their heads around it.
They are also
hostile to any Lamarckian effects, which could surely be useful thus
encouraged by evolution.
No mechanism has been discovered, and it is not /necessary/
for Darwinian evolution.
That first part is not entirely true. (The second is - Lamarckian
evolution is not necessary.) In organisms such as humans, where early
development is within the environment of a parent, epigenetic effects
occur as do other environmental factors - the lifestyle of the mother
can affect the expression of genes in the child, and this can be passed
down. But it is a minor effect, in that it is usually only for the one
generation (such as the child of a smoking mother often being of poorer
health than average).
Part of the hostility to alternate ideas is the need to not be accused
of even slightly trending in the direction of causation or even
complexity. That\'s a barbed-wire fence against unpermitted thinking.
The hostility is against alternate ideas that have already
been considered in detail, and found wanting.
Exactly. Some ideas get rejected on the first pass, others get kept for
further consideration. If you don\'t sort your ideas, you get bogged
down in nonsense that leads nowhere. The hostility here is not towards
ideas in general, it is towards repeated and pointless obsession with
worthless ideas that do not match reality.
Alternate ideas - when they make predict and explain new
effects - are sought after, since they can lead to reward
and recognition.
Having said that, they may take a generation to become
established wisdom, and that\'s no bad thing.
Being in the design business, I am fascinated by how common is
hostility to playing with ideas.
Irrelevant.
And given the quality of Larkin\'s ideas here, unsurprising.
Non-Darwinian evolution, jumping genes, epigenetics were not much
welcomed.
Eh? Jumping genes and epigenetics are part of Darwinian evolution.
They are just additional complications to the mechanisms of biological
evolution as we have it in life on earth - they fit within standard
Darwinian evolution. They don\'t fit neatly within the simple model of
getting your traits via genes from your parents - but biologists are
used to things being more complicated when examined more closely.
On 23/03/2022 17:39, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 23/03/22 16:30, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
Because a minimal DNA reproduction mechanism needs complex-programmed
DNA surrounded by complex support mechanisms. None of that is useful
until it all works.
The \"intelligent designer\" fraternity used to claim that
about eyes, livers, etc.
We know better now.
We knew better before, too. As Darwin himself said:
\"\"\"
[R]eason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and
complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to
its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever
so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the
case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful
to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of
believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural
selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be
considered real.
\"\"\"
Larkin simply has no imagination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:05:18 +0000, Tom Gardner <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 14:39, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 07:34:20 +0000, Tom Gardner <spam...@blueyonder.co..uk> wrote:
On 23/03/22 00:50, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 00:19:51 +0000, Tom Gardner <spam...@blueyonder..co.uk> wrote:
On 22/03/22 22:48, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 22 Mar 2022 22:13:21 +0000, Tom Gardner <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 22/03/22 19:02, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 22 Mar 2022 16:13:27 +0000, Tom Gardner <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 21/03/22 23:01, John Larkin wrote:
Saying \"God created it\", or anything equivalent, is
not understanding. It is avoiding understanding.
I never said that.
Several people have pointed out that you have repeatedly
said thing that /are/ *equivalent*. They have given
reasons for the equivalence.
Cite a statement where I said that God created life on earth.
And \"several people\" ? That\'s your call to authority? Several people
on usenet!
No \"authority\" is required, merely reading your posts
is sufficient.
\"Several people\" merely serves to show that my reading
of your posts isn\'t completely wrong, no more.
It shows that you are not the only clicking old hen in SED who doesn\'t design electronics.