Why is it that every time genetic "information" is brought up to argue in favor of design...

[pshun2404]

"Predetermined"? What do you mean by this?

I think you are anthropomorphizing, in a way. It seems that you are implying that an enzyme, for example, was 'predetermined' to catalyze a specific reaction.

'Predetermined' how?

Would it not have to be "already encoded"?

Projection.

Exactly! Already encoded before they develop (hence information and instruction for their specific formation)

 

[pshun2404]

Already (Pre-) encoded (determined)...there is no random possibility that that which will become a lung will instead become a liver (which is also "already encoded")

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

... those arguing are completely unable to define what constitutes "information" in that context?

Because it is the devil's playground/ domain/
i.e.
satan is in charge of that through men who haven't a clue....

 

[Mediaeval]

You're not describing communication. You're describing observation.

Observation, and by extension how it is that our observations can form intelligible concepts in the mind. Since objects of observation do not pass directly into the mind, the contents of the mind are wholly subjective and exist only as ideas or mental conceptions. So if the thoughts we conceive of external objects accurately correspond to those objects, then the objects themselves must be thought-shaped or cast in the moulds and forms of thought. A fundamentally extra-mental and non-rational thing would be neither amenable to thought nor logically affirmable except perhaps as simple white noise, as when a radio processes a signal that has not been first informed with intelligible content.

 

[PsychoSarah]

DNA itself is not the other mind, just as speech itself is not a mind but a product and expression of mind. If anything has been learned from DNA, then the communication of ideas that we ourselves did not originate has taken place. And as intelligence is the indispensable condition of originating and reproducing ideas, this communication too is between Mind and mind.

-_- DNA explicitly didn't communicate any ideas we ourselves didn't have previously. Not any more than observing a waterfall could inspire the creation of a decoration of a small model of one. Heck, our species even came up with "units of inheritance" before genes were discovered. People act as if DNA has some mystical properties, but it's just a macromolecule that engages in chemical reactions in our bodies in a way that helps keep us alive... as does glucose, and phospholipids, and amino acids... There's nothing that DNA does that really stands out in nature. People also bring it up as if RNA doesn't do all of the legwork in our cells often attributed to DNA. Seriously, DNA has to be transcribed into a different nucleic acid altogether for ribosomes to even utilize it to construct proteins. What a waste of cell resources. Literally every time DNA is copied, it becomes shorter. What type of message in any language gets shorter every time it is replicated? None. Not to mention how it suffers from mutations too, which "change the message". And since DNA is "read" in groups of 3, losing a codon is like changing "The rat has his hat" to "Her ath ash is at-" (deletion mutation). DNA could NEVER function like a language.

 

[Mediaeval]

What a waste of cell resources.

Are you saying living organisms are poorly designed?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Are you saying living organisms are poorly designed?

Living organisms are evolved, not designed.

 

[sfs]

Exactly! Already encoded before they develop (hence information and instruction for their specific formation)

Where did the information that codes for specific antibodies come from? You weren't born with it.

 

[pshun2404]

Where did the information that codes for specific antibodies come from? You weren't born with it.

That has nothing to do with you being a mammal as opposed to being a fish, or having lungs and not gills...anti-bodies are a macro-level immunological response to invading antigens usually sensed as hostile to our homeostasis.

 

[Mediaeval]

Living organisms are evolved, not designed.

For the sake of argument, you can take the word "designed" metaphorically instead of literally. Do you think that living organisms are poorly "designed" or constructed? Some atheists allege "poor design" as an argument against theism. Is that a valid argument in your opinion?

 

[sfs]

That has nothing to do with you being a mammal as opposed to being a fish, or having lungs and not gills...anti-bodies are a macro-level immunological response to invading antigens usually sensed as hostile to our homeostasis.

Sure, but they have everything to do with genetic information, which is the subject of this thread. You have information in your DNA to code for thousands of different antibodies for specific microbes. You weren't born with that information. Where did it come from?

 

[Subduction Zone]

For the sake of argument, you can take the word "designed" metaphorically instead of literally. Do you think that living organisms are poorly valid argument in your opinion?

The observed "poor design" is only an argument against design. It is not an argument against a deity. And yes, there are aspects of life that are "poorly designed" compared to what an omnipotent deity could do if it "designed" life. If life evolved it is about as good as it can be.

 

[pshun2404]

Sure, but they have everything to do with genetic information, which is the subject of this thread. You have information in your DNA to code for thousands of different antibodies for specific microbes. You weren't born with that information. Where did it come from?

That specific information is generated as a response to unique antigens as we are exposed to them...we have a built in tendency to protect and defend our body's well being and that IS part of the already encoded instructions at birth (in potentia).

 

[sfs]

That specific information is generated as a response to unique antigens as we are exposed to them.

How is it generated? Is a mind needed to generate the information? Is it carrying semantic meaning from an intelligent agent?

 

[PsychoSarah]

Are you saying living organisms are poorly designed?

There was a lot more to address in my post besides that, and what you decide to address is quite an irrelevant detail to the overall conversation of "is DNA like a language or not". But there are a lot of problems in living organisms that could have been easily fixed by a hypothetical designer, but make sense in terms of evolution. For example, food and air go along the same "pipe" for a ways, which makes choking possible. There's no design reason they have to share transport space, just make two separate tubes. Or, even better, make it like snakes so that all animals can breathe while swallowing without choking to death. How about the fact that every time a spider molts, it has the chance of it not going right and dying as it's body is squished by it's own old exoskeleton in a gruesome and painful death? What loving designer would make a flaw that cruel and pointless?

Yet, evolution isn't an intelligent designer. It works with what it gets. If the spiders that reproduce the most successfully happen to have a small chance of death every time they molt, then unfortunately, that's what's going to persist to the next generation. Mutations adding function to a pre-existing structure are far more common than ones which generate and entirely new, useful structure, hence why food and air share the same "pipe" in many animals. Only in animals for which choking was a huge hazard, like snakes, were there strong enough selection pressures for a structure that removed that risk.

 

[Obliquinaut]

... those arguing are completely unable to define what constitutes "information" in that context?

I think in all the examples of this I've ever seen, nobody has ever attempted to actually define what information is as it applies to genetics.

They do love to bring up Shannon Entropy!

I was reading a book about the history of Bell Labs and they had a big section on Shannon's work at Bell Labs. I never really did get the whole "information entropy" concept in my brain though. Some pretty cool stuff from an age when companies could keep people on staff who came up with really cool concepts!

 

[Mediaeval]

There was a lot more to address in my post besides that, and what you decide to address is quite an irrelevant detail to the overall conversation of "is DNA like a language or not". But there are a lot of problems in living organisms that could have been easily fixed by a hypothetical designer, but make sense in terms of evolution. For example, food and air go along the same "pipe" for a ways, which makes choking possible. There's no design reason they have to share transport space, just make two separate tubes. Or, even better, make it like snakes so that all animals can breathe while swallowing without choking to death. How about the fact that every time a spider molts, it has the chance of it not going right and dying as it's body is squished by it's own old exoskeleton in a gruesome and painful death? What loving designer would make a flaw that cruel and pointless?

Yet, evolution isn't an intelligent designer. It works with what it gets. If the spiders that reproduce the most successfully happen to have a small chance of death every time they molt, then unfortunately, that's what's going to persist to the next generation. Mutations adding function to a pre-existing structure are far more common than ones which generate and entirely new, useful structure, hence why food and air share the same "pipe" in many animals. Only in animals for which choking was a huge hazard, like snakes, were there strong enough selection pressures for a structure that removed that risk.

Somehow your replies did not seem to really address what I wrote. Perhaps we have been talking past each other. But your "irrelevant" statement caught my attention, for if we are not intelligently designed, then that would have ramifications for our brains and cognition. We could not trust the calculations of a computer unless it was intelligently designed. So this resultant uncertainty would be one more way in which atheism deprives one of a foundation for knowledge.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Somehow your replies did not seem to really address what I wrote. Perhaps we have been talking past each other. But your "irrelevant" statement caught my attention, for if we are not intelligently designed, then that would have ramifications for our brains and cognition.

Not really, other than we couldn't blame a designer for our flaws.

We could not trust the calculations of a computer unless it was intelligently designed.

Even the most well designed computer screws up sometimes. Though I trust my calculator to get the math right, nothing is flawless, regardless if it is natural or designed by us.

So this resultant uncertainty would be one more way in which atheism deprives one of a foundation for knowledge.

-_- you say that as if scientific conclusions have ever been "certain". Even the strongest theory has the potential to be disproven, with sufficient evidence contrary to it. However, even though I know that 100% certainty is never something that can be achieved in science, this doesn't bother me. Certainty has NEVER been the foundation of knowledge. It's an eternal quest to expand on our knowledge of the world, and we will never know literally everything about it. That doesn't make knowledge any less worth seeking.

 

[Mediaeval]

-_- you say that as if scientific conclusions have ever been "certain".

Not really. I think the disconnect in our exchange is here: you have been talking about biology while I have been talking about epistemology.

 

[xianghua]

For the sake of argument, you can take the word "designed" metaphorically instead of literally. Do you think that living organisms are poorly "designed" or constructed? Some atheists allege "poor design" as an argument against theism. Is that a valid argument in your opinion?

i do think that the design is real and we have good evidence for it. about the "bad design argument". is a bad argument too.