Dna And Its Origins

[Khandro]

In the light of new findings, DNA is even more beautiful and complex than we imagined, considering that it was in existence in the early life-forms on the planet, doesn't any theory of the origin of life by a blind series of chemical accidents seem preposterous ?
Surely only the most unimaginative and feeble-minded could believe in this.

[jomifl]

The mathematics may not have changed but chemical analytical techniques have improved enormously. Science does not stand still.

[jomifl]

/Dr. Yockey is the first scientist to define the distinction between living and non-living matter, which he does as follows: /
Definitions of living organisms have existed as long as biology has existed.
It was taught in biology lessons at school.

[jomifl]

Professor Hubert P. Yockey (b. April 15, 1916), PhD is a physicist and information theorist. He worked under Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project, and at the University of California, Berkeley.

He has studied the application of information theory to problems in biology and published his conclusions in the Journal of Theoretical Biology from 1974 onwards. He is very critical of the primordial soup theory of the origin of life, and believes that "the origin of life is unsolvable as a scientific problem."

So there you have it, perhaps the opinion of a chemist might be different.

[Hypognosis]

An essential part of the argument from authority fallacy is that the person being quoted is highly qualified in some academic field but, crucially, not in the field of research about which they are expressing their opinion.

Perhaps I should express my opinions about art, so Khandro can experience the equivalent level of anger of having to listen to an uninformed, self-styled expert spouting off about his favourite subject?

[Khandro]

jomifl; The point is not that he gave the definitions of living and non-living matter, we have our dictionaries for that - he gave the definition of why they were distinctly different and separated in a manner that could not correspond, or be interchangeable.
He is not only against the idea of primordial soup theories, he is, by the way, opposed to ID.
He believes, like St Thomas Aquinas (and dare I say me) that some things are unknowable.

[Khandro]

Hypo; Lets hear it on art (on another thread please) you might be surprised on convergence.

[Hypognosis]

@Khandro

As jomifl pointed out, science moves on. Rapidly. Back in my uni days, one year's worth of a peer-reviewed type journal would take up two to three feet of shelf space. Uni libraries are a closed shop but the British Library or other major city libraries would have a full set of the big-name ones. See for yourself.

Aristotle gets frequent ribbing on QI. "Aristotle, who, while brilliant, often got things wrong".

[Peter Pedant]

http://www.hubertpyockey.com/hpyblog/

This post is written by Cynthia Yockey. The first thing I want noted about my father is that he is not in any way, shape or form a Creationist. He does not support Intelligent Design. He supports Darwin’s theory of evolution and points out that it is one of the best-supported theories in science.


well that clears that up then

[Hypognosis]

@peter_pedant

Thanks but a typo mangled whatever you were trying to say.

This link
http://www.genetics.org/content/156/1/297.full

has a passage which says (for humans)

"The average mutation rate was estimated to be ~2.5 × 10−8 mutations per nucleotide site or 175 mutations per diploid genome per generation. "

Which is a rather sobering ballpark figure. We are none of us perfect. (Not even blondes. Sorry, gents).


"Rates of mutation for both transitions and transversions at CpG dinucleotides are one order of magnitude higher than mutation rates at other sites. Single nucleotide substitutions are 10 times more frequent than length mutations."

Length mutations are the answer to how "extra information" gets into DNA, out of nowhere. A favourite debating point of IDers.

There is not a huge number of generations of humans (200,000 years???) but, having said that, beyond size, how far back into pre-human species do we need to do comparative biology on to find an eye at least one step-change away from our own? (Other than simple factors, like eyeball size and iris colour because structure and function (ability, acuity, colour sensitivity) changes are what we are concentrating on).

[jim360]

Aristotle is, so far as I can see, a total berk. But maybe I'm doing him an injustice. I know that he gets a lot of stick, in particular for his apparent disdain for actually bothering to test his ideas.

"And Hypo what clever men spoke of 50 years ago on the subject of mathematics makes it no less true, - unless you know otherwise."

Mathematics is special in that a thing, once true, is true forever -- but there is always the possibility of a theorem being wrong after all, or too restricted in its scope so that a more relaxed or different approach changes the picture. This is even more so when you try to apply maths to the real world -- and usually find that the real world is not nearly so easy to pin down definitively.

[Peter Pedant]

thanks hypo for the modern figures

I thought it was 10-5 and forty
which is not really kinda a life and death difference to yours

[Peter Pedant]

Aristotle is, so far as I can see, a total berk. But maybe I'm doing him an injustice.

for chrissakes JIm give aristotle a break - he did after all live 2300 y ago !

experimentation takes its place in 'science' oo 1900 y later

[jim360]

There's a difference between not being able to perform the experiment, and actively discouraging even the idea of trying. My understanding of Aristotelian philosophy was that it was heavily based on reasoning through thought, rather than, and indeed in preference to, observation. If that's mistaken then I retract my "berk" accusation.

[Hypognosis]

I thought that Yockey definition was too tight, on first reading but, thinking about it, provided that capacity for reproduction is *the* key criterion for defining life then no organism can fit the definition without that coding/copying machinery.

I had to strikeout "self-replication" and write "reproduction" because prion proteins can self replicate, without recourse to DNA and I see them as a disease process not a life form. Proteins that catalyse the production of copies of themself are, however, still fascinating.


p.s. tholines. Pluto. Your search engine results may vary.

[Khandro]

jim; //Aristotle is, so far as I can see, a total berk. But maybe I'm doing him an injustice.//
That statement is not really doing him an injustice, more like making yourself sound like a total prat.

[Hypognosis]

My spelling error didn't help. I meant tholins.

Peter's post regarding Carl Sagan's attempt at primordial soup was not only correct (Miller-Urey, which I insisted on, was the original) but he and his colleague came up with the term 'tholin' for their tar-like mixture of organic products (aka 'gunk').

Thourough explanatory piece here

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2015/0722-what-in-the-worlds-are-tholins.html

Surface chemistry gets a mention, again.

[Theland]

And what about the rest of us who only ask the simple questions?
Mutations responsible for the length of a protein and therefore additional,information in the dna?
How did Stephen C Meyer miss this nugget?
And why with labs, computers and human brains have we not created life in the test tube as the evolutionists claim is possible?
Sorry to ask you to come down to my level folks.

[mibn2cweus]

I admire you scepticism Theland . . . if only you applied it consistently to various other aspects of your thinking.

[mibn2cweus]

Pardon my spontaneous mutation in the first 'your' sequence.

[jomifl]

Theland, not having a test tube size of a planet and a billion years or so to run an experiment the experimenters are a bit restricted in being able to replicated the conditions that possibly gave rise to life.