Darwinists Running Scared

[kyser_soze]

Another argument for everyone to ignore:

Suppose for the sake of argument that Dawkins and the mainstream science consensus is correct. Their theory that DNA came together through random chance in what is known as the "primordial soup" is in fact true. (though as it happens it's neither falsifiable or verifiable, and only justified on account of the bias of science to naturalistic explanations)

And it's also true that life on this planet evolved as a result of random mutation and natural selection.

Now, it has to be admitted that as a result of this random process, some remarkably unlikely and intelligent organisms have developed, including us.

So, what if at some point, as a result of random mutation, a new kind of DNA developed that was able receive information from the organism that possessed it, in such a way that it would stand a higher chance of mutating in a useful way, when propagated.

Remember that by the principles of random mutation and natural selection, all possible advantages in the race for survival, should have some chance of evolving.

Now, suppose there were these two types of DNA, one that just mutated randomly, and the other that kind of understood its own programming, and mutated to some extent in response to its changing environment, which kind of DNA do you think would outcompete the other?

--yeah but that's impossible, that's way too unlikely, how can DNA be intelligent?

--How can we be intelligent? We're also way too unlikely. But we're here.

Some people -strain at a gnat, but will swallow a camel.

Science of Discworld answers all of these questions in e-zee-reed format. There is some evidence for 'live encoding' of DNA, but as with evolution generally it's not directed. Your hypothetical question is pointless as well - altho if intelligent DNA was also responsible for editing itself and went for an elegant solution (i.e. one without much waste) it would probably loose since DNA itself is designed with massive amounts of redundancy in it.

The problems with imagining DNA, evolution etc is down to the human need for a narrative structure (and the consequent need for a 'satisfying' directed action) and the time/probabilty interactions. It's not possible to imagine OR simulate the processes that happen over 1 billion years - all the possible events that can happen in that time etc.

DNA has been evolving on this planet to fit the current conditions for 3 billion years, including a couple of periods when life was in a very precarious state - and there's nothing to say that in 1 billion years life won't be back to where it was in the pre-Cambrian period. There is no 'goal' in evolution, it doesn't plan ahead (in fact this is one problem with it - as species evolves to become super specialists requiring very specific environments/food etc they become more likely to become extinct so can't deal with sudden environmental shocks) BUT it does have this vast ability to keep itself reproducing so long, it appears, that there's some water in which to exist.

 

[ZWord]

Science of Discworld answers all of these questions in e-zee-reed format. There is some evidence for 'live encoding' of DNA, but as with evolution generally it's not directed. Your hypothetical question is pointless as well - altho if intelligent DNA was also responsible for editing itself and went for an elegant solution (i.e. one without much waste) it would probably loose since DNA itself is designed with massive amounts of redundancy in it.
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I don't see why it's pointless, - and i'm not convinced it's hypothetical either.

 

[Crispy]

How can DNA be intelligent?

Hmm, interesting question. I suppose in theory, you could call a strand of DNA a strip of machine code fro a Turing machine - then I suppose that it would be possible for it to adapt. However, this behaviour should be detectable - so, given time, your hypothesis will be proved or falsified. I await the results with not-so-baited breath. It seems to me that the amount of complexity that is required to produce intelligent behaviour in organisms is so much greater than the complexity of a single DNA molecule, that the emergence of intelligence in DNA would be a very remote chance indeed. If there's an experiment we could do to test your hypothesis, please let us know.

 

[axon]

Now, suppose there were these two types of DNA, one that just mutated randomly, and the other that kind of understood its own programming, and mutated to some extent in response to its changing environment, which kind of DNA do you think would outcompete the other?

I don't think there is any fundamental reasons why in evolutionary theory (although physics might have some issue with it) you couldn't have "intelligent " DNA. It's just that there is no evidence of intelligent DNA and the data so far can be accounted for by random mutations and rearrangements.
The environment can certainly affect DNA, for example I think that organisms that live in extremely hot environments tend to have a greater proportion of GC base pairs than AT base pairs, which is presumably because GC are connected by three hydrogen bonds which are more stable than AT pairs which only have two hydrogen bonds. But for the DNA to intepret the environment it would first have to see into the future to determine what the environment was going to be like, and then take this information and use it to physically change it's structure, then transport all this new DNA to the reproductive cells.

 

[Nickster]

With physics, it's not so much what you discover, as what you say what you discover means.
Physicists have generally covered their unacceptable results about the nature of reality with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, which says that they're not talking about reality, they're talking about what they can say about reality, thus not dealing with the real problem.

Speaking as a professional physicist, that sort of argument is generally the kind of thing that non-scientists throw at us when they disagree with theories that conflict with their own beliefs. Experimental and theoretical results are always thoroughly peer-reviewed and criticised, more-so than ever before perhaps. It is a poor physicist who mistakes evidence with belief. It is the philosophical discussion that follows which obfuscates the matter.

 

[Nickster]

Everything? Light? Radio waves? Photons that divide into two and remain connected despite being light years apart? Beliefs? Desires?

EM radiation certainly has material existence - we have known this ever since de Broglie's proof of wave-particle duality.
Quantum entanglement is another matter. It's still not entirely understood.
Beliefs and desires? Biochemical products of brain.

 

[kyser_soze]

I don't see why it's pointless, - and i'm not convinced it's hypothetical either.

It's pointless in the context of our planet because if it was evolutionarily useful there'd be a species with this intelligent DNA on the planet...and if it was better than the blind watchmaker we currently carry in out genes then the chances are we wouldn't exist.

 

[Crispy]

I think the implication is that we do have this ability, and that's what makes us special.

 

[ZWord]

It's pointless in the context of our planet because if it was evolutionarily useful there'd be a species with this intelligent DNA on the planet...and if it was better than the blind watchmaker we currently carry in out genes then the chances are we wouldn't exist.

How do you know we aren't that species?

 

[ZWord]

....DNA itself is designed with massive amounts of redundancy in it.

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that's interesting. I didn't know that.

If it's true, then it would probably be more accurate to say DNA appears to scientists to have massive amounts of information in it that scientists have not yet found any purpose for.

To say that the information is redundant, just because we don't know what it does, seems to me to be a kind of hubris, characteristic of humans, who have a long track record of thinking they know it all , and then being surprised.

Quite possibly the parts of DNA that appear to be redundant are in fact the parts that interact with the organism that carries them, and carry details of how DNA works.

I don't know if this a testable hypothesis. I do know that mainstream science wouldn't bother to test it in any case, because they already "know" what's possible and what's not, and they wouldn't want to find out if it were true.

As far as I remember, within the dawkins' worldview, organisms appear as simply the means by which DNA propagates itself, so in a sense we're the junior partner, so, the case remains open to whether or not DNA is intelligent.

As we don't understand why we are conscious, it remains a parochial prejudice that scientists hold without evidence to presume that mentality can only exist in beings like us. It's perfectly possible and indeed predicted by darwinian theory that DNA is intelligent.

 

[Crispy]

It's redundant as in it can be switched out for another random bag of base pairs and the gene continues to function. Here's a useful graphic:

As you can see, 75% of the human genome does not reside in genes. This figure varies wildly from species to species - even between very closely related ones. So far, no purpose for it has been found, aprt from 'spacing' to provide clear gaps between coding regions - allowing the DNA reproduction process to act in an uncluttered environment.

In one experiment, scientists removed 3% of a mouse's DNA, from this non-coding 'junk' DNA (this is tricky stuff - removing all the 'junk' DNA is beyond our means so far) and the resulting mice were healthy in every way they could measure. source

So as you can see, scientists are testing this 'junk' DNA for its purpose, if any. It's one of the big questions in genetics. No firm answers just yet, but they're working on it. If DNA is intelligent, we'll find out soon.

 

[kyser_soze]

*looks around*

strangley dissapeared post...database issues...

Ah well, Crispy explained away anyhoo...

BTW ZWord - ever read 'Dune'? Or looked at any research involving 'genetic memory'? If you're into the idea of intelligent DNA you'd probably like that as well...

 

[ZWord]

Yeah I've read it, but I don't need to read about genetic memory to find about it, I've experienced it.

 

[kyser_soze]

Yeah I've read it, but I don't need to read about genetic memory to find about it, I've experienced it.

Ah OK, and can you replicate that at will? Is it something you can control?

Or was it something you 'experienced' while under the influence?

You see, even here you're basically saying that 'I've experienced what I think is X, therefore it must be true'

And did you read Dune first or after your 'experience' of genetic memory?

 

[ZWord]

Can I replicate it? I wish.

 

[axon]

I don't know if this a testable hypothesis. I do know that mainstream science wouldn't bother to test it in any case, because they already "know" what's possible and what's not, and they wouldn't want to find out if it were true.

Yes, there's nothing a scientist hates more than making a novel discovery

 

[ZWord]

I honestly can't remember when I read Dune.

 

[kyser_soze]

I honestly can't remember when I read Dune.

Well TBH with you, there is every chance that what you perceived as a genetic memory experience was a cultural artefact swimming around in your psyche - this is the problem with self reporting, in that it's impossible to separate what's 'new' with what's already in your head.

This is why I discard 99% of 'revelations' I have while I'm on drugs, certainly refer them to 'light of day' reasoning, because most are bollocks and riven with personal idiosyncrcies, or simply overly personal re-iterating of prior knowledge...

 

[ZWord]

i've experienced a good many things in my life, which really is stranger than fiction, these days, and I've experienced these things both under the influence and not, - a distinction that's started to mean less and less as time's gone on.

Which is why I shouldn't get wound up by this whole argument.
It's not that anyone's going to convince me I don't know what I know.
My experiences of "god" are more self-verifying than my everyday experience of the world. But, I do find it a shame that people seem to have such an emotional attachment to not believing, that they rule out the masses of personal experiences people have of the divine as being irrelevant, or the product of deranged minds, and then in addition deny that science really leaves the question open, and tbh, makes it quite plausible that reality is in essence spiritual.

 

[kyser_soze]

i've experienced a good many things in my life, which really is stranger than fiction, these days, and I've experienced these things both under the influence and not, - a distinction that's started to mean less and less as time's gone on.

Which is why I shouldn't get wound up by this whole argument.
It's not that anyone's going to convince me I don't know what I know.
My experiences of "god" are more self-verifying than my everyday experience of the world. But, I do find it a shame that people seem to have such an emotional attachment to not believing, that they rule out the masses of personal experiences people have of the divine as being irrelevant, or the product of deranged minds, and then in addition deny that science really leaves the question open, and tbh, makes it quite plausible that reality is in essence spiritual.

The problem is mate that all your experiences of God are unique to YOU - they have happened in your subjective take on reality, not mine and not on anyone elses.

So while it's real to you, I'd probably see it as something other than divine (a few examples would go a long way here) - for example, I don't see anything divine about narture, just something overwhelmingly incredible given that it springs out of some (relatively) simple rules meeting probability.

Fine if you want to have faith and believe in whatever God you want to - but next time you're severely injured, ask what you're going to put your faith in - God or science?

 

[laptop]

under the influence and not, - a distinction that's started to mean less and less as time's gone on.

Your words.

Had a critic said this, you'd be crying "slander!"

Now, about that belated understanding of integrity - and that apology...

 

[Jo/Joe]

Everything? Light? Radio waves? Photons that divide into two and remain connected despite being light years apart? Beliefs? Desires?

I don't think you're quite keeping up, Jo- have a look at the argument about materialism a few pages back.

What are beliefs and desires? Unique neural pathways inside each individual. Damage those neurons and you damage those beliefs. We experience them as something else subjectively of course, but the information is stored and transmitted materially. Mainstream science is responsible for our understanding of that.

Science has made miraculous discoveries (in the non-religious sense of the word), yet you still criticise it for being blinkered and ignoring some 'truth'. Yet this 'truth' is something you cannot show anyone else. The extent of the universe, the first nanoseconds of existence, the emergence of life and it's evolution, knowledge of all of these is a result of painstaking methodology, yet you expect everyone to sit up and agree with outlandish conclusions that have not been subjected to anywhere near the same amount of scrutiny or research.

Given that the scientific method is responsible for so, so much, you still have the arrogance to state that scientists are wrong to describe any DNA as junk.