Criteria for determining design

[DogmaHunter]

Well like two of us have noted...life. The specific and necessary elements for the first life or cell would be a criteria for Design.

How did you conclude that?

The fact that mankind at this point in history points to the success of the plan.

How did you conclude that?

 

[DogmaHunter]

If we disregard the extremely unlikely factors that allow life to exist at all on earth... fine tuning of the universe as well as the requirements for earth itself to accommodate life; we find that the first birth of life to be very unlikely as well if only natural occurring phenomena were at work.

Homochirality and the other requirements of the first life exemplify the limits of life arising by natural occurring phenomena.

Sooo..... your "evidence" is that you don't understand how life can come about through natural means - so therefor: it didn't?

This should be on a wikipedia page titled "the argument from ignorance", as an example.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Do you have another means of life's creation other than naturally or supernaturally?

"you don't know either!" is not a good way to substantiate your own claims...

In fact, it only reinforces your claim as an argument from ignorance...

 

[ChetSinger]

Can you show me a source on the net that shows that cells are the requirement for life? A legitimate source?

My wife's college-level biology textbooks are enough to satisfy me.

Citation needed.

I found it by googling "DNA repair" and choose the Wikipedia link that appeared.

Or do you really think that this is something that science can't explain and they are just pulling the wool over the eyes of all the people studying to be biologists?

I think this is something that science can't explain, and the lack of an explanation is freely admitted by many (places like talkorigins excepted, of course).

And as for that quote, he's wrong. I can use the exact same argument to show that it is impossible to build a freestanding stone arch. And yet we see stone arches, don't we?

The freestanding stone arches we build are intelligently designed, aren't they? (Sorry for the cheap shot, but you walked into that one )

 

[Loudmouth]

Since I've read that in biology textbooks and study guides. My wife has a degree in biology so I've got some of these things lying around.

You can get cells with relative ease using abiotic processes. A lipid bilayered membrane forms naturally and without the need for pre-existing life.

I've read that the DNA in each of our cells requires repair between 10,000 and 1,000,000 times every day. We're talking about broken rungs, etc. So I think almost all of the errors must be fixed.

The operative word being "almost". They have sequenced the genomes of parents and their children, and there is zero doubt that children are born with DNA changes not seen in their parents. Each one of us is born with about 50 mutations.

"Here we present, to our knowledge, the first direct comparative analysis of male and female germline mutation rates from the complete genome sequences of two parent-offspring trios. Through extensive validation, we identified 49 and 35 germline de novo mutations (DNMs) in two trio offspring, as well as 1,586 non-germline DNMs arising either somatically or in the cell lines from which the DNA was derived."
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v43/n7/full/ng.862.html

What's more, the transcription specifications for these repair mechanisms just happen to be contained in the DNA itself. To satisfy me, your explanation must result in what we see today.

Why would abiogenesis need to produce something that is the end product of 3.5 billion years of evolution?

In fact, why would the first life even need DNA?

 

[ChetSinger]

You can get cells with relative ease using abiotic processes. A lipid bilayered membrane forms naturally and without the need for pre-existing life.

You're wasting your time with a word game like the one above, because I won't bother answering it.

The operative word being "almost". They have sequenced the genomes of parents and their children, and there is zero doubt that children are born with DNA changes not seen in their parents. Each one of us is born with about 50 mutations.

It sounds as if you're suggesting DNA repair mechanisms are optional because we pass on 50 unrepaired mutations to our children and they're still OK. Are you serious? If you produce a paper that demonstrates we can accumulate 10,000 unrepaired mutations per day, pass them on to our children and they'll still be OK, I'll give it a look.

Why would abiogenesis need to produce something that is the end product of 3.5 billion years of evolution?

In fact, why would the first life even need DNA?

OK, I'll repeat my opinion yet again: life is cells, so until you can explain cells I don't think you're explaining much at all. But if you're satisfied with the RNA world that's your business.

 

[Loudmouth]

You're wasting your time with a word game like the one above, because I won't bother answering it.

Do you doubt that lipid bilayers can form abiotically?

It sounds as if you're suggesting DNA repair mechanisms are optional because we pass on 50 unrepaired mutations to our children and they're still OK. Are you serious? If you produce a paper that demonstrates we can accumulate 10,000 unrepaired mutations per day, pass them on to our children and they'll still be OK, I'll give it a look.

No one is saying that abiogenesis has to produce a human. Showing what is required for a human is not showing what would be necessary in the first life. You might as well argue that a city has to have electricity in order to exist since all modern cities have electricity.

OK, I'll repeat my opinion yet again: life is cells, so until you can explain cells I don't think you're explaining much at all. But if you're satisfied with the RNA world that's your business.

Do we have to explain where the first atoms came from in order to explain how lightning is formed?

 

[ChetSinger]

You can get cells with relative ease using abiotic processes. A lipid bilayered membrane forms naturally and without the need for pre-existing life.

You're wasting your time with a word game like the one above, because I won't bother answering it.

Do you doubt that lipid bilayers can form abiotically?

OK, let's back up and take stock of this for a minute, because I'm starting to think that you don't know why I called your first post above a word game. And your third post above makes me think that you didn't intend it to be a word game like I thought you did.

So let me explain why I snapped at your first post. KTS and I had been talking back and forth about cell internals, specifically DNA repair mechanisms. And then you stepped in and said "You can get cells with relative ease...". Well no, you can't. You can create membranes with relative ease. Membranes are not cells; they are only one of the many components of cells.

I thought you made that false equivalence on purpose as a word game, so I called it out. But after reading your next response I no longer think you did. I think it was accidental. So I think I understand you, and I hope you understand me.

 

[Loudmouth]

OK, let's back up and take stock of this for a minute, because I'm starting to think that you don't know why I called your first post above a word game. And your third post above makes me think that you didn't intend it to be a word game like I thought you did.

So let me explain why I snapped at your first post. KTS and I had been talking back and forth about cell internals, specifically DNA repair mechanisms. And then you stepped in and said "You can get cells with relative ease...".

This was in response to you saying that you need cells for life, in a most generic sense.

If you are going to claim that you need DNA repair mechanisms in the first life, then you are really going to need to back that claim up with something. You first need to show that DNA is even a requirement for life to come about abiotically. DNA is made by RNA and protein, so why couldn't it start with RNA and protein? RNA can also be used as a genome, as viruses have shown. RNA can also act as a protein.

Well no, you can't. You can create membranes with relative ease. Membranes are not cells;

Actually, they are. The original term is a metaphor for the cells that monks live in. The original cells were never defined by DNA, proteins, or anything else. They were defined by their membrane and shape. A round volume enclosed by a lipid bilayer is a cell. It is not life by itself, but it is a cell. Cells provide one of the aspects that life needs, an area where life can maintain homeostasis, a barrier that defines inside and outside.

 

[ChetSinger]

This was in response to you saying that you need cells for life, in a most generic sense.

OK.

If you are going to claim that you need DNA repair mechanisms in the first life, then you are really going to need to back that claim up with something. You first need to show that DNA is even a requirement for life to come about abiotically. DNA is made by RNA and protein, so why couldn't it start with RNA and protein? RNA can also be used as a genome, as viruses have shown. RNA can also act as a protein.

No, I don't need to do anything. I'm satisfied that life was engineered by God and I've explained to the OP one of my reasons why.

Actually, they are. The original term is a metaphor for the cells that monks live in. The original cells were never defined by DNA, proteins, or anything else. They were defined by their membrane and shape. A round volume enclosed by a lipid bilayer is a cell. It is not life by itself, but it is a cell. Cells provide one of the aspects that life needs, an area where life can maintain homeostasis, a barrier that defines inside and outside.

I think you're inviting misunderstanding by not using a more precise term such as "cell membrane". But that's your call.

 

[Loudmouth]

No, I don't need to do anything. I'm satisfied that life was engineered by God and I've explained to the OP one of my reasons why.

Just to be clear . . .

You expect science to explain every fine detail about how life started . . .

But you, on the the other had, can make great pronouncements about supernatural deities magically poofing life into existence, and you don't feel any need to explain anything or provide any evidence. Even more, you make grand pronouncements about what the earliest life had to have, and once again feel no need to back up any of your claims with any science or really anything.

Do I have that right?

I think you're inviting misunderstanding by not using a more precise term such as "cell membrane". But that's your call.

You are the one who invited misunderstanding.

 

[ChetSinger]

Just to be clear . . .

You expect science to explain every fine detail about how life started . . .

But you, on the the other had, can make great pronouncements about supernatural deities magically poofing life into existence, and you don't feel any need to explain anything or provide any evidence. Even more, you make grand pronouncements about what the earliest life had to have, and once again feel no need to back up any of your claims with any science or really anything.

Do I have that right?

No, I don't think you do. The OP asked for criteria for determining design. I answered that a criterion I've used for determining design is the presence of interdependent parts. And I then gave an example: DNA is easily damaged and requires regular repair, yet the repair mechanisms are themselves created using the help of that very same DNA. That is, the DNA and it's repair mechanisms are interdependent.

 

[PsychoSarah]

No, I don't think you do. The OP asked for criteria for determining design. I answered that a criterion I've used for determining design is the presence of interdependent parts. And I then gave an example: DNA is easily damaged and requires regular repair, yet the repair mechanisms are themselves created using the help of that very same DNA. That is, the DNA and it's repair mechanisms are interdependent.

Interdependency is not a good way to determine design. After all, in an environment that would allow such a genetic structure to form, chances are it would also keep it stable. When those good conditions began to go away, DNA that contained a mechanism for self-repair would be naturally selected for, while all strains which did not have such a mechanism would have died off. It is entirely possible that the repair mechanism developed long before it was actually necessary for survival.

 

[dad]

Just to be clear . . .

You expect science to explain every fine detail about how life started . . .....
Do I have that right?
....

Ha. They have no clue and admit it. That hardly is explaining every detail. They have lost any authority to spread silly doubts.

 

[dad]

.. After all, in an environment that would allow such a genetic structure to form, chances are it would also keep it stable. When those good conditions began to go away, DNA that contained a mechanism for self-repair would be naturally selected for, while all strains which did not have such a mechanism would have died off. It is entirely possible that the repair mechanism developed long before it was actually necessary for survival.

Hilarious. It is about time you show not how it "would" be possible to form, chances are...but how it DID form etc. Until then fables are fables are fables.

 

[Kylie]

My wife's college-level biology textbooks are enough to satisfy me.

So this textbook says that the presence or absence of cells is the ONLY requirement for determining if something is alive, huh?

I found it by googling "DNA repair" and choose the Wikipedia link that appeared.

So that is talking about what is there TODAY. Do you think that the very first time such mechanisms appeared they were identical to what we have today? Of course they weren't.

I think this is something that science can't explain, and the lack of an explanation is freely admitted by many (places like talkorigins excepted, of course).

Despite the fact that I gave you an explanation which is completely plausible?

The freestanding stone arches we build are intelligently designed, aren't they? (Sorry for the cheap shot, but you walked into that one )

If you are proposing irreducible complexity, then so are you.

In any case, my point with the stone arches is that we can have things that would appear to be irreducibly complex and forming all at once without that actually being the case.

 

[Kylie]

No, I don't need to do anything. I'm satisfied that life was engineered by God and I've explained to the OP one of my reasons why.

Yes you do.

Sure, you can have reasons for reaching a certain conclusion, but if someone turns around and demonstrates that your reason isn't a very good reason, you do need to justify why you continue to hold that conclusion even when you no longer have a good reason to.

 

[Kylie]

No, I don't think you do. The OP asked for criteria for determining design. I answered that a criterion I've used for determining design is the presence of interdependent parts. And I then gave an example: DNA is easily damaged and requires regular repair, yet the repair mechanisms are themselves created using the help of that very same DNA. That is, the DNA and it's repair mechanisms are interdependent.

And as I have said, such repair mechanisms are explainable by evolution. If they can be explained by evolution, they they cannot serve as evidence for a God.

 

[dad]

And as I have said, such repair mechanisms are explainable by evolution. If they can be explained by evolution, they they cannot serve as evidence for a God.

Just because you can 'explain' something by natural processes in a series of possible sequences you can't prove over deep imaginary time you can't prove does not mean..well anything!

 

[ChetSinger]

And as I have said, such repair mechanisms are explainable by evolution. If they can be explained by evolution, they they cannot serve as evidence for a God.

I think we've reached an impasse. You appear satisfied with how you think DNA repair mechanisms may have originated, and I'm not. I've enjoyed our discussion but I don't know where to go from here.