Interview with Altenberg scientist

[gluadys]

I remember busterdog was anticipating the results of the Altenberg confab this summer. The report is not due out until early in the new year, but here's a sneak preview.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3516772316650379357


PS I've learned that the interviewer is strongly creationist. I could have guessed from the tenor of her questions. One can see at points that Newman is uncomfortable with her approach.

 

[birdan]

Thanks for posting that video, it was very informative. This would be a great video for MK to watch re. his human brain evolution questions. The whole idea of non-incremental evolution seems to tie in with recent work in cis-regulatory regions of the genome (but I'm just a layman so I could be off base here).

An important point to make up front is that these new concepts are an extension or refinement of the modern synthesis, and not a negation of it. It seems similar to general relativity, which extended Newtonian physics rather than negated it.

 

[gluadys]

An important point to make up front is that these new concepts are an extension or refinement of the modern synthesis, and not a negation of it. It seems similar to general relativity, which extended Newtonian physics rather than negated it.

Very important.

What was new to me was the differentiation of self-assembly and self-organization. And that the concept of self-organization comes originally from physics. So we are on a frontier here between physics and biology, much as molecular biology puts us on a frontier of chemistry and biology. Interesting how evolution draws so many sciences together.

 

[USincognito]

PS I've learned that the interviewer is strongly creationist. I could have guessed from the tenor of her questions. One can see at points that Newman is uncomfortable with her approach.

Even if she didn't show up wearing a I {heart} Ken Ham t-shirt, an exchange like this is a a dead give away.

About 27:30

The National Center for Science Education director Eugenie Scott told me that her organization does not support self-organization because it is confused with Intelligent Design, that is design beyond laws as Michael Behe, a bio-com.. chemist at Lehigh University describes it. NCSE also pays uh, lucrative fees to conference speakers who keep a lid on self-organization by beating the drum for Darwinian natural selection. NCSE and it’s cronies completely demonize the Intelligent Design community even though, those who agree evolution happened… even those who agree evolution happened. Religion is not the target, um, since even the Natural Academy of Sciences embraces religion. So it seems the real target is those who fail to kneel before the Darwinian Theory of Natural Selection and to prevent, maybe, the further fattening of the Darwinian industry tapeworm.

At 28:36 Newman tries to interject but she continues

NAS, NASA/NAI (?) in respected publications Science, Evolution and Creationism and (?) astrbiology primer have also kept out any discussion of self-organization. What’s your response to this, why you think such organizations continue to feed unenlightened information to the public at public expense.

That's not a question or a set up for a question, that's a diatribe.

Maybe she wouldn't go of off script and um and er so much if she'd keep the skreeds to under a minute and a half.

 

[busterdog]

Very important.

What was new to me was the differentiation of self-assembly and self-organization. And that the concept of self-organization comes originally from physics. So we are on a frontier here between physics and biology, much as molecular biology puts us on a frontier of chemistry and biology. Interesting how evolution draws so many sciences together.

How about the communication sciences?

http://darwiniana.com/2008/08/26/scoopaltenberg-stuart-newman-interview/

Forget about the Suzan Mazur softballs. I want to put the lights on him, hit him with a phone book and make him 1. speak English; 2. confess to irreducible complexity.

I appreciate you putting this up. I listened to the guy. I just keep thinking of Heidegger, Al Haig and James Joyce.

Just kidding.

The language is tough sledding. It is tendentious, but then, the guy is defending the new Darwinians.

The following, however, is a pretty well administered beating for Darwinisn orthodoxy:

Suzan Mazur: The National Center for Science Education director Eugenie Scott told me that her organization does not support self-organization because it is confused with intelligent design, i.e., “design-beyond-laws” – as Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University describes it. NCSE also pays lucrative fees to conference speakers who keep the lid on self-organization by beating the drum for Darwinian natural selection. NCSE and its cronies completely demonize the intelligent design community, even those who agree evolution happened. Religion is not the target since even the National Academy of Sciences embraces religion. So it seems the real target is those who fail to kneel before the Darwinian theory of natural selection and prevent the further fattening of the Darwinian industry tapeworm.

hahaha very good.

 

[gluadys]

hahaha very good.

Problem is it comes from Mazur, not Newman. She was obviously trying to bait him, while he was trying studiously not to take the bait while remaining polite.

It would seem that as far as Newman was concerned this so-called question ranked along with "And when did you stop beating your wife?"

I found it interesting in reviewing the earlier parts of the transcript how often he contradicted her.

Item:

Suzan Mazur: How much agreement is there among your Altenberg colleagues about the gene arriving late in the evolutionary process and playing a secondary role?

Stuart Newman: I think possibly some things that I’ve said, or possibly some other people have put in that light, suggest that the gene is a late arrival – but we never in our scientific papers have said anything like that. We’re all dealing with organisms that have genes.

.....I don’t know anybody who thinks genes arrived late.



Item:

Suzan Mazur: With the extended synthesis, has the shift actually begun from the gene-centered perspective of evolution to non-centrality of the gene? As a result of this meeting [Altenberg], has the shift happened?

Stuart Newman: In some people’s minds the shift happened a while ago in their own work. The general shift has not happened, and it may not happen for quite some time, if it happens at all. But let me put it in a more precise way. It’s not just a shift from mechanisms that use genes to mechanisms that don’t use genes. All the mechanisms use genes.

The question is are there different forms solely due to genetic evolution or are they due to other organizing processes of multicellular life beyond the gene – in addition to the gene?

(All emphases added)

Maybe with that loaded question he just gave up.

 

[busterdog]

Problem is it comes from Mazur, not Newman. She was obviously trying to bait him, while he was trying studiously not to take the bait while remaining polite.

It would seem that as far as Newman was concerned this so-called question ranked along with "And when did you stop beating your wife?"

I found it interesting in reviewing the earlier parts of the transcript how often he contradicted her.

Item:

Suzan Mazur: How much agreement is there among your Altenberg colleagues about the gene arriving late in the evolutionary process and playing a secondary role?

Stuart Newman: I think possibly some things that I’ve said, or possibly some other people have put in that light, suggest that the gene is a late arrival – but we never in our scientific papers have said anything like that. We’re all dealing with organisms that have genes.

.....I don’t know anybody who thinks genes arrived late.



Item:

Suzan Mazur: With the extended synthesis, has the shift actually begun from the gene-centered perspective of evolution to non-centrality of the gene? As a result of this meeting [Altenberg], has the shift happened?

Stuart Newman: In some people’s minds the shift happened a while ago in their own work. The general shift has not happened, and it may not happen for quite some time, if it happens at all. But let me put it in a more precise way. It’s not just a shift from mechanisms that use genes to mechanisms that don’t use genes. All the mechanisms use genes.

The question is are there different forms solely due to genetic evolution or are they due to other organizing processes of multicellular life beyond the gene – in addition to the gene?

(All emphases added)

Maybe with that loaded question he just gave up.

I learned that Suzan Mazur is a journalist. Not sure of her background.

The question of how tendentious the questions are depends in part upon your perspective. So, I understand why you would see her words as combative interrogation, and more polemic than "journalism."

From my perspective, you might criticize the doctor for being so paranoid about saying anything that remotely sounds encouraging to creationists. I have said things that evolutionists can use against me, and the endless tiptoeing around things to avoid those problems is to me something that causes more confusion.

I am not sure who would be qualified to say, but perhaps a neutral person might be able to look at this and comment about whether the words being used are really bringing clarity or more tending to entrench positions.

I think the evolutionary theory is getting less clear and more confusing as time goes by. In part this is because: 1. science has caught up with the limitations of randomness as a cause; and 2. people are falling over themselves to avoid sending conceding anything to their enemies.

I know there is real science and meat in what the good doctor is doing, but there is a large heaping portion of poorly prepared and jumbled word salad.

 

[gluadys]

I think the evolutionary theory is getting less clear and more confusing as time goes by. In part this is because: 1. science has caught up with the limitations of randomness as a cause; and 2. people are falling over themselves to avoid sending conceding anything to their enemies.

I would add a third cause of confusion: the deliberate obfuscation amd equivocation generated by the YEC propaganda machine. And one good example of that is the way the term "random" is handled.


I would agree that the information on evolution and its mechanisms is becoming much more detailed and complex. We are far from the four simple propositions Darwin began with, mostly because of the vastly increased information we have on genetics and molecular biology.

 

[busterdog]

I would add a third cause of confusion: the deliberate obfuscation amd equivocation generated by the YEC propaganda machine. And one good example of that is the way the term "random" is handled.


I would agree that the information on evolution and its mechanisms is becoming much more detailed and complex. We are far from the four simple propositions Darwin began with, mostly because of the vastly increased information we have on genetics and molecular biology.

OK. Lets both agree that there is too much politics in science. The polarized debate is mucking it up. Science is being written to play to the fight about how we teach biology in public schools.

 

[shernren]

Suzan Mazur: The National Center for Science Education director Eugenie Scott told me that her organization does not support self-organization because it is confused with intelligent design, i.e., “design-beyond-laws” – as Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University describes it. NCSE also pays lucrative fees to conference speakers who keep the lid on self-organization by beating the drum for Darwinian natural selection. NCSE and its cronies completely demonize the intelligent design community, even those who agree evolution happened. Religion is not the target since even the National Academy of Sciences embraces religion. So it seems the real target is those who fail to kneel before the Darwinian theory of natural selection and prevent the further fattening of the Darwinian industry tapeworm. NAS and NASA/NAI in their respective publications Science, Evolution and Creationism, and Astrobiology Primer have also kept out any discussion of self-organization. What is your response to this? Why do you think such organizations continue to feed unenlightened information to the public at public expense?

Eugenie Scott told me that the NCSE supports reproductive sterilization of all religious Americans in order to remove any possible genetic basis for the scourge of irrationality that is religion.

 

[busterdog]

Eugenie Scott told me that the NCSE supports reproductive sterilization of all religious Americans in order to remove any possible genetic basis for the scourge of irrationality that is religion.

Well, there is no denying that with time, there would be less bad hair on television. You would think evangelicals invented the comb-over!

 

[Assyrian]

Better than Elisha's bear patch.

 

[shernren]

Nick Matzke has an illuminating commentary on the recent ID communications concerning the Altenberg conference:

http://www.talkreason.org/PrinterFriendly.cfm?article=/articles/luskin-lost.cfm

See in particular:

Since I know the people involved (although I no longer work at NCSE and have not talked to either of them about Mazur, so these are strictly my own opinions), I'm pretty sure what happened. Padian is a busy guy running a paleontology lab and has little patience for reporters who make it evident they are bound and determined to misunderstand and misreport on evolutionary topics, rather than actually try to make an effort to understand what is going on (he will make plenty of time for the latter). Padian got that Mazur was hell-bent on writing an 'evolution is a theory in crisis' story, told her that in reality there was no scientific debate over the validity of evolution, and hung up. Genie Scott, on the other hand, possesses a saint-like patience and obviously made an attempt to help Mazur understand that (a) self-organization has nothing to do with ID but (b) the IDists attempt to invoke it, falsely, as "an alternative to Darwinism", and then slip in ID as another alternative, (c) this sort of trickery is invalid in education or journalism and this is what NCSE opposes. And the idea that NCSE somehow "opposed" the Altenberg meeting, organized by one of NCSE's own best buddies (Pigliucci) and attended by numerous others, is just silly three times before breakfast

Mazur may have manipulated the interview into some sort of statement about NCSE "not supporting" the Altenberg meeting or books on self-organization -- but there are a near-infinite number of books and meetings on all sorts of technical/academic evolution-related topics. NCSE doesn't have the money, time, or mission to "support" them all even with website commentary, let alone financially or with staff time. NCSE doesn't oppose any of these things, obviously. Based on Mazur's argument, one could make an equally silly argument that NCSE "doesn't support" statistical phylogenetics -- a major academic topic these days. It's the job of the National Science Foundation and other huge institutions to support research in diverse technical academic subjects; NCSE's job is simply to support good science education.

There are also commentaries on the proceedings of Altenberg written by (not an unknown journalist) the organizer of the conference, at his blog. For example: http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2008/07/altenberg-2008-what-happened.html

 

[busterdog]

Nick Matzke has an illuminating commentary on the recent ID communications concerning the Altenberg conference:

http://www.talkreason.org/PrinterFriendly.cfm?article=/articles/luskin-lost.cfm

See in particular:

Since I know the people involved (although I no longer work at NCSE and have not talked to either of them about Mazur, so these are strictly my own opinions), I'm pretty sure what happened. Padian is a busy guy running a paleontology lab and has little patience for reporters who make it evident they are bound and determined to misunderstand and misreport on evolutionary topics, rather than actually try to make an effort to understand what is going on (he will make plenty of time for the latter). Padian got that Mazur was hell-bent on writing an 'evolution is a theory in crisis' story, told her that in reality there was no scientific debate over the validity of evolution, and hung up. Genie Scott, on the other hand, possesses a saint-like patience and obviously made an attempt to help Mazur understand that (a) self-organization has nothing to do with ID but (b) the IDists attempt to invoke it, falsely, as "an alternative to Darwinism", and then slip in ID as another alternative, (c) this sort of trickery is invalid in education or journalism and this is what NCSE opposes. And the idea that NCSE somehow "opposed" the Altenberg meeting, organized by one of NCSE's own best buddies (Pigliucci) and attended by numerous others, is just silly three times before breakfast

Mazur may have manipulated the interview into some sort of statement about NCSE "not supporting" the Altenberg meeting or books on self-organization -- but there are a near-infinite number of books and meetings on all sorts of technical/academic evolution-related topics. NCSE doesn't have the money, time, or mission to "support" them all even with website commentary, let alone financially or with staff time. NCSE doesn't oppose any of these things, obviously. Based on Mazur's argument, one could make an equally silly argument that NCSE "doesn't support" statistical phylogenetics -- a major academic topic these days. It's the job of the National Science Foundation and other huge institutions to support research in diverse technical academic subjects; NCSE's job is simply to support good science education.

There are also commentaries on the proceedings of Altenberg written by (not an unknown journalist) the organizer of the conference, at his blog. For example: http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2008/07/altenberg-2008-what-happened.html

One man's twisting is another man's reporting.

I am reminded of the T Rex blood thing. So many chickens were so afraid that something they said would be misused by the creationists.

I bet they will clam up now and try to argue that no one can use their evidence but them. Its like saying that you cant use data unless it comes to the correct conclusion that the people generated the data happen to like. Its childish.

First of all, Mazur's color commentary is nice and entertaining. But nothing she said is of ANY significance to me in sizing up the debate. What the scientists themselves say is of interest.

I am working my way through part of Kaufman's book on Reinventing the Sacred. It is tough going, let me tell you. The guy is scared stiff that he might lead someone to God the Father by mistake. So many words. So much circumlocution.

No one owns the facts. That is supposed to be what science is about. I would like to see some guts in these guys whereby they allow creationism to succeed or fail on its own without the defensive qualification of every statement.

Funny thing about the above statement, is that the debate moves towards the personal (words like "hell-bent" and "manipulated") but the writer never bothers to make his case on the facts.

He should simply be able to show that there is no "intelligence" in the "design" of matter. Instead, there is this caddy, sissy, gossippy prevarication about Mazur's intentions and how horribly antithetical ID is as a general but unsupported proposition, except he never shows that there is no "intelligence" in "design." This is seen in his need to whine about "statistical phylogenics". In my very biased way, I note that it seems to me that when science is busted, it always starts with the buzzwords and they never use the terms intelligibly, since talking down to other seems to be the point.

Nothing against you Shernren. I just find this quoted piece to be just not persuasive on anything. Unless you agree with the author, you get nothing out of it. No meaningful information. No attempt to establish a rapport with the dissent.

And lets not start debating too much. Our views are pretty divergent. What I find frustrating here in the quoted piece is the lack of traction for my perspective. THere isnt a basis to begin a discussion here. If the point was that overwhelming, then the writer could use my views and the data I have to make his case. That would be dialogue.

 

[gluadys]

I would like to see some guts in these guys whereby they allow creationism to succeed or fail on its own without the defensive qualification of every statement.

I expect the scientists' answer could be summed up as "Been there, done that." Creationism has been allowed to succeed or fail on its own and has failed.

 

[shernren]

And lets not start debating too much. Our views are pretty divergent. What I find frustrating here in the quoted piece is the lack of traction for my perspective. THere isnt a basis to begin a discussion here. If the point was that overwhelming, then the writer could use my views and the data I have to make his case. That would be dialogue.

The point of the article was to comment on Luskin's warped commentary on the Altenberg meetup. It was not to prove the inconsistency of ID per se. Surely no author should have to replicate the massive volumes already said about the intellectual vacuity of ID before commenting on one particular point fascinating to him or her! I might as well complain about the lack of traction given to theology in your posts because you don't preface every post with a full exposition of Calvin's TULIP.

Anyhow:

First of all, Mazur's color commentary is nice and entertaining. But nothing she said is of ANY significance to me in sizing up the debate. What the scientists themselves say is of interest.

vs.:

The following, however, is a pretty well administered beating for Darwinisn orthodoxy:

Suzan Mazur: The National Center for Science Education director Eugenie Scott told me that her organization does not support self-organization because it is confused with intelligent design, i.e., “design-beyond-laws” – as Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University describes it. NCSE also pays lucrative fees to conference speakers who keep the lid on self-organization by beating the drum for Darwinian natural selection. NCSE and its cronies completely demonize the intelligent design community, even those who agree evolution happened. Religion is not the target since even the National Academy of Sciences embraces religion. So it seems the real target is those who fail to kneel before the Darwinian theory of natural selection and prevent the further fattening of the Darwinian industry tapeworm. NAS and NASA/NAI in their respective publications Science, Evolution and Creationism, and Astrobiology Primer have also kept out any discussion of self-organization. What is your response to this? Why do you think such organizations continue to feed unenlightened information to the public at public expense?

hahaha very good.

That's right folks, busterdog's "well-administered beating" of just over a week ago is now not of ANY significance to him to sizing up the debate.

A self-consistency time of just over a week is pretty good, but nothing much to be impressed at.

 

[busterdog]

That's right folks, busterdog's "well-administered beating" of just over a week ago is now not of ANY significance to him to sizing up the debate.

A self-consistency time of just over a week is pretty good, but nothing much to be impressed at.

Yes. Still content with what is posted above. And no, I am going to waste time in mock combat.

I am happy with everything posted above. The conclusion is the same. The complexity of "self-organizing" does a fine job within its limited and chosen frame of reference, but simply finds its own "irreducible complexity" at a new level beyond its chosen frame of reference. Usually, with each move, the odds get longer and longer. Which scripture predicts.

 

[shernren]

Usually, with each move, the odds get longer and longer. Which scripture predicts.

I've never seen anything in Scripture on the odds of complex life; do we read the same Bible?

And, odds can be calculated. I've never seen your numbers. Mine, on the other hand, look decidedly good.

So let's play the creationist game and look at forming a peptide by random addition of amino acids. This certainly is not the way peptides formed on the early Earth, but it will be instructive.

I will use as an example the "self-replicating" peptide from the Ghadiri group mentioned above [7]. I could use other examples, such as the hexanucleotide self-replicator [10], the SunY self-replicator [24] or the RNA polymerase described by the Eckland group [12], but for historical continuity with creationist claims a small peptide is ideal. This peptide is 32 amino acids long with a sequence of RMKQLEEKVYELLSKVACLEYEVARLKKVGE and is an enzyme, a peptide ligase that makes a copy of itself from two 16 amino acid long subunits. It is also of a size and composition that is ideally suited to be formed by abiotic peptide synthesis. The fact that it is a self replicator is an added irony.

The probability of generating this in successive random trials is (1/20)^32 or 1 chance in 4.29 x 10^40. This is much, much more probable than the 1 in 2.04 x 10^390 of the standard creationist "generating carboxypeptidase by chance" scenario, but still seems absurdly low.

... 1 chance in 4.29 x 10^40, that's a big number, and although a billion starting molecules is a lot of molecules, could we ever get enough molecules to randomly assemble our first replicator in under half a billion years? Yes, one kilogram of the amino acid arginine has 2.85 x 10^24 molecules in it (that's well over a billion billion); a tonne of arginine has 2.85 x 10^27 molecules. If you took a semi-trailer load of each amino acid and dumped it into a medium size lake, you would have enough molecules to generate our particular replicator in a few tens of years, given that you can make 55 amino acid long proteins in 1 to 2 weeks [14,16].

So how does this shape up with the prebiotic Earth? On the early Earth it is likely that the ocean had a volume of 1 x 102^4 litres. Given an amino acid concentration of 1 x 10^-6 M (a moderately dilute soup, see Chyba and Sagan 1992 [23]), then there are roughly 1 x 10^50 potential starting chains, so that a fair number of efficent peptide ligases (about 1 x 10^31) could be produced in a under a year, let alone a million years. The synthesis of primitive self-replicators could happen relatively rapidly, even given a probability of 1 chance in 4.29 x 10^40 (and remember, our replicator could be synthesized on the very first trial).

Assume that it takes a week to generate a sequence [14,16]. Then the Ghadiri ligase could be generated in one week, and any cytochrome C sequence could be generated in a bit over a million years (along with about half of all possible 101 peptide sequences, a large proportion of which will be functional proteins of some sort).

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

 

[busterdog]

I've never seen anything in Scripture on the odds of complex life; do we read the same Bible?

I am going to answer with a deliberately even tone. I fully understand the arguments against. The biblical passages are of course general passages about human knowledge. You can pick them out of Proverbs yourself if you wish about the difference between human knowledge and God's Revelation. I will probably also get some prophetic sources, with a little thought. Ecclesiastes also works as well.

And, odds can be calculated. I've never seen your numbers. Mine, on the other hand, look decidedly good.

Your odds are for things that never happened.

This certainly is not the way peptides formed on the early Earth, but it will be instructive.

In my eyes, this is true, ironically.

I think about your challenge to submit to your testing to determine whether you have a means of embarrassing me here. I already understand that advocating certain positions make many smirk. As you may have guessed, this isnt of much concern to me.

But, let me digress be lightening the mood, since you "wanna catch me ridin' dirty."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6Zc9NyYH-k

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=white+and+nerdy&search_type=

Yes. That is me. Guilty as charged. The original Chamillionaire is probably a little to racy to post. The point is the cops wanna catch the brother ridin dirty.

Here is the Wikipedia site using the same kind of language I use. Your numbers are not very instructive. I think the intent is really to say that if you dont do the math, you dont get the concept. So, anyone who wants to buy that, go ahead. Its a free country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_organizing

Self-organization in biology

According to Scott Camazine.. [et al.]:
“ In biological systems self-organization is a process in which pattern at the global level of a system emerges solely from numerous interactions among the lower-level components of the system. Moreover, the rules specifying interactions among the system's components are executed using only local information, without reference to the global pattern.[5] ” The following is an incomplete list of the diverse phenomena which have been described as self-organizing in biology.

1. spontaneous folding of proteins and other biomacromolecules
2. formation of lipid bilayer membranes
3. homeostasis (the self-maintaining nature of systems from the cell to the whole organism)
4. pattern formation and morphogenesis, or how the living organism develops and grows. See also embryology.
5. the coordination of human movement, e.g. seminal studies of bimanual coordination by Kelso
6. the creation of structures by social animals, such as social insects (bees, ants, termites), and many mammals
7. flocking behaviour (such as the formation of flocks by birds, schools of fish, etc.)
8. the origin of life itself from self-organizing chemical systems, in the theories of hypercycles and autocatalytic networks
9. the organization of Earth's biosphere in a way that is broadly conducive to life (according to the controversial Gaia hypothesis)

In the Altenburg example, the deeper they got into the mechanics of the enzymes, the longer the odds got. Then, it was like ten to the one thoundandth and more. With the water molecule, one you figure out why the bonds create these unique properties, you have to now figure out why we have the physical laws that we have. You will remember the famous quote from the guy from NASA that once you look at big bang, you realize that any further inquiry is the province of the theologians rule. If it were not so, we wouldnt be using silly words like "spontaneous" as noted above.