Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution

ok -- on one hand - papers from the last couple of years by teams of scientists --- OR Encyclopedia Britannica with a dated report.

Yes much of the primary instructions are linear, but much - if not most - is open to dynamic responses.  Please find below a list of other signal pathways found as of 20 years ago.

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Modern discoveries include those of repeated genes, split genes and alternative splicing, assembled genes, overlapping genes, transposable genes, complex promoters, multiple polyadenylation sites, polyprotein genes, editing of the primary transcript, and nested genes.


https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7688132/
This has been the case for 50 years!  Why as a supposed defender of ID, do you always respond with materialist arguments ????

None of these interesting complicated variations of the way stored DNA along the gene (or multiple genes) is ultimately transcribed into a protein alters the underlying fact that the net (after all rearrangements) coding is linear of necessity to create a viable specialized protein with its highly specified three dimensional configuration that determines it's function. If the net DNA coding were not linear and as intended for the required configuration of the protein, the shape and activity of the folded amino acid chain would be wrong.

Can we frame this in terms of science?  If we found an object - say a multilayer printed circuit board - we can ask how it was designed and built.  The glass, epoxy, copper and tin are all molecules that are defined.  The processes of drilling, imaging and plating have to be in its history.  We have information from a bill of materials and processes instructions that define physical construction.

Are they the same level of design as the logic gates of computation???  There is craftmanship in making electronic devises, focusing attention to specific regulation of measurable current flow.

The design of a PWB (pcb) starts with a Truth Table and the logic gates to actualize command outputs.  A level of design that is not physical, but able to be physically constructed.

The bio-information for evolution, comes from real-world events that are recipient forms of mind's decisions and their intentional outcomes to thrive and survive.  You want to talk about the moldy old arguments of Darwinism about material "genes".

I want to talk about how living things designed themselves by changing the probable information in the past and future to command and control the present.  Before eating was the desire to grow.

There is no science argument against a Divine Plan.  Nor is there science to support it.  Nature is pretty amazing in how it supports life and mind.

This appears to mainly be non sequiturs and obfuscation. The existence of mind in nature is assumed at the start (and also at the end) with no explanation of how it possibly could "emerge" from the mechanisms of the cell, then it is asserted that living things design themselves without explaining how the intricate extremely complicated and irreducibly complex designed mechanisms of the cell (and even more so of multicellular animals) could possibly be designed by simple cognitive processes. And then finally, it is presumed that nature has a "desire", even though desire (and other emotions) are fundamentally properties of subjective consciousness, which nowhere in this verbiage has been explained, or has the Hard Problem been solved.

None of these interesting complicated variations of the way stored DNA along the gene is ultimately transcribed into a protein alters the underlying fact that the net (after all rearrangements) coding is linear of necessity to create a viable specialized protein with its highly specified three dimensional configuration that determines it's function. If the net DNA coding were not linear and as intended for the required configuration of the protein, the shape of the folded amino acid chain would be wrong.

I have confirmed that some coding is literal, but you seem not to accept all of these other variables that can effect the expression of the DNA sourced signals.  The idea that the gene, chromosomes and DNA were a complete source for the signal is incorrect in the modern day, although it was thought to be true 75 years ago.  

Again, when the pathway opens for mind being an active influence (a fact in favor of Psi) - you and David are back arguing with Materialistic talking points from the past.

Because the signals of DNA are regulated and modified in multiple processes it can not be literal expression from DNA.  It's like saying that ground wheat is pure and is all the cake and all the cake needs, ignoring all the other ingredients and baking that contribute to making actual good cake.  Or when a writer's version of a book is edited, changed by the screen writer and then adapted to each actor.  The editors, writers , director and actors add multiple dynamic aspects to the meanings expressed. 

Decades ago, I tried wheat germ as a dietary choice.  Soon the taste buds rejected the outcome.  Its Entemann's for me.

This appears to mainly be non sequiturs and obfuscation. The existence of mind in nature is assumed at the start (and also at the end) with no explanation of how it possibly could "emerge" from the mechanisms of the cell, then it is asserted that living things design themselves without explaining how the intricate extremely complicated and irreducibly complex designed mechanisms of the cell (and even more so of multicellular animals) could possibly be designed by simple cognitive processes. And then finally, it is presumed that 

what - are not asking me to solve quantum gravity as well.

You are simply not reading what I am saying.  I do not have to explain how mind emerges from matter, because the assertion is that mind organizes information so as to flow into matter.  Mind - first - then mind organizing matter.  Matter embodies mind as the final step.

As to how the cell "designs" through adaptation from ecological feedback, has been cited in more than a dozen articles and books citations.  
Try this one.

 
For example, scientists such as James A. Shapiro explains in his 2011 book that cells are packed with molecular mechanisms that help them actively restructure their genomes. Random mutations are fairly rare and almost always deteriorate what is already working well.  

https://www.amazon.co.uk/BEEM-Biological...B00CMFUIJE

Your charge that - it is my presumption - "nature has a "desire", even though desire (and other emotions) are fundamentally properties of subjective consciousness is true and you are correct.  I think that desires and intentions ARE subjective consciousness.  And that the will and intentions that flow from it are mental workings and proceed embodied life.

what - are not asking me to solve quantum gravity as well.

You are simply not reading what I am saying.  I do not have to explain how mind emerges from matter, because the assertion is that mind organizes information so as to flow into matter.  Mind - first - then mind organizing matter.  Matter embodies mind as the final step.

As to how the cell "designs" through adaptation from ecological feedback, has been cited in more than a dozen articles and books citations.  
Try this one.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/BEEM-Biological...B00CMFUIJE

Your charge that - it is my presumption - "nature has a "desire", even though desire (and other emotions) are fundamentally properties of subjective consciousness is true and you are correct.  I think that desires and intentions ARE subjective consciousness.  And that the will and intentions that flow from it are mental workings and proceed embodied life.

Your concept seems to be related to the Mimamsa school of Hinduism, where Ātman is an eternal, omnipresent, inherently active essence that is identified as I-consciousness (Wiki). In Advaita Vedanta Hinduism it is held that the Atman is fully identical with Brahman, the supreme monistic principle of the universe. Many Hindus claim the Atman is found in all living things. You seem to presume that this underlying fundamental level of consciousness or mind exists amid Nature and the physical world, without further explanation. This Mind just Is, and decides on its own to permiate and animate physical Nature within the forms of living organisms. 

This is also related to panpsychism, the view that mind or a mindlike aspect is simply a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality.

In these ways of thinking, no further analysis or attempt to understand the inner nature or origin of this Mind (or to find any kind of solution to the Hard Problem if it has any relevance) is appropriate or fruitful. This would include any attempt to understand how such universal Mind can become the agent acting as the focused conscious intelligence that is clearly behind the immensely intricate complex and irreducibly complex designs of life.  

Anyway, I guess that perhaps there can be no further productive discourse on this particular issue since this is a matter of faith not science.

you and David are back arguing with Materialistic talking points from the past.

I'm not arguing for materialism, and I am pretty sure nbtruthman isn't either, I am arguing that the Third Way people should give up materialism and cooperate to some extent with the Intelligent Design folk at the DI.

Maybe the Third Way people need to use obscure language just to keep their research grants flowing, but we are anonymous and retired, so why can't we talk common sense.

I suppose the point is, that there really isn't a 'third way'! Once RM+NS is seen to be invalid, you pretty much have to invoke some sort of intelligence, and you have to invoke that intelligence back before life existed on earth - because it sure didn't start randomly - some entities(s) did all the chemical preparations and said OK, are we ready to push the button... here we go! My bet is that every cell has some link to a non-material intelligence (something like Rupert Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields) but probably viruses do not.

You cite BEEM as an alternative

In BEEM, author and engineer Raju Pookottil boldly diverges from the Darwinian theory of natural selection and offers a thought provoking counter-hypothesis for the evolution of all living organisms. He proposes that every species, be it single cells, plants or animals, are equipped with the fundamental
mechanisms that allows them to generate intelligent and logical decisions that they could then utilize in directing their own evolution.

What could possibly be wrong with that?

Well suppose you have a theoretical single celled organism A, but you want it to be able to evolve intelligently, so you add a big chunk to that blueprint to enable it to do that to give you a new orgnism A1. Well the problem as I see it is, that you have to equip A1 with a mass of knowledge about protein structure and chemistry at the very least - that would exceed the knowledge of anyone on earth right now because as far as I know, nobody can divise a new protein from scratch. In other words, A1 is something like a super smart biochemist - strikingly larger that A!

Now perhaps you want A1 to evolve. That would involve another addition to make A2. Goodness knows what A2 would have to know, but it would have to understand how A1's mind worked in order to modify it intelligently. Then A2 might need to evolve........

David

I am arguing that the Third Way people should give up materialism and cooperate to some extent with the Intelligent Design folk at the DI.

Maybe the Third Way people need to use obscure language just to keep their research grants flowing, but we are anonymous and retired, so why can't we talk common sense.

You are not talking common sense, but trying to offer an imaginative narrative, about me and the scientists who express themselves on Third Way.

Maybe scientists use language that is obscure to you, but is effective in communicating data based facts.  Accusing some of the world's most successful scientists with false accusations is weak argument.  Pretending that the DI folks and the Third Way folks are focused on politics is bizarre.   I just think your range of your discussion is not in good faith and appears to have an personal agenda. 

Here is what the DI actually thinks about the science from Third Way scientists as they have an article by Shapiro on their site.
https://www.discovery.org/a/2552/

 During embryonic development, cells make decisions about differentiation based on multiple molecular signals picked up from their environment and from their neighbors by means of surface receptors. These receptors are linked to intercellular molecular cascades called “signal transduction pathways” which integrate the inputs from the receptors to generate appropriate patterns of differential gene expression and morphogenesis of specialized cell structures.

Signal transduction is not limited to multicellular development. We are learning that virtually every aspect of cellular function is influenced by chemical messages detected, transmitted, and interpreted by molecular relays. To a remarkable extent, therefore, contemporary biology has become a science of sensitivity, inter- and intra-cellular communication, and control. Given the enormous complexity of living cells and the need to coordinate literally millions of biochemical events, it would be surprising if powerful cellular capacities for information processing did not manifest themselves. In an important way, then, biology has returned to questions debated during the mechanism-vitalism controversy earlier this century. This time around, however, the discussion is informed by two new factors. One is that the techniques of molecular and cell biology allow us to examine the detailed operation of the hardware responsible for cellular responsiveness and decision-making. The second is the existence of computers and information networks, physical entities endowed with computational and decision-making capabilities. Their existence means that discussing the potential for similar activities by living organisms is neither vague nor mystical.

I have been answering your questions and you ignore mine.  Can you express some comprehension of what Shapiro is saying to the DI audience and how it is connected to my posts?

You are not talking common sense, but trying to offer an imaginative narrative, about me and the scientists who express themselves on Third Way.

Maybe scientists use language that is obscure to you, but is effective in communicating data based facts.  Accusing some of the world's most successful scientists with false accusations is weak argument.  Pretending that the DI folks and the Third Way folks are focused on politics is bizarre.   I just think your range of your discussion is not in good faith and appears to have an personal agenda. 

Here is what the DI actually thinks about the science from Third Way scientists as they have an article by Shapiro on their site.
https://www.discovery.org/a/2552/

I have been answering your questions and you ignore mine.  Can you express some comprehension of what Shapiro is saying to the DI audience and how it is connected to my posts?

Unlike the panpsychism and Mamamsa Hinduism issue in metaphysics, philosophy and religion, there certainly can be productive discussion on this. I think Shapiro's explanations are clear, understandable to the layperson and to the point. The way I read this material is that the cell has been found to be in part an extremely complex computing system mechanism that includes certain properties of intelligence including a limited capacity for "responsiveness and decision-making". In a way this could be looked upon as a form of primitive intelligence.

However, computing machinery however complex does not and can not in the end constitute conscious intelligence, mind that has the capacity for abstract thought, creativity, visualization, intentionality (agentness), etc. which by the way are all required to originate the designs of life. For this reason and others it is also very much not expected that advanced AI developed by humans will ever achieve consciousness. This relates to the well-known Hard Problem of consciousness, where it was realized by philosopher Chalmers that there is a fundamental existential gulf between things and thoughts so to speak. The essence of things is physical things and their workings, such as neurons and synapses in the brain and their evoked potentials and other physical properties for instance. Or mechanisms consisting of millions of coordinated logic gates and digital memory units executing programmed instructions.

Whereas the essence of conscious mind involves the fundamental qualities or properties of consciousness and awareness, such as the qualia of perception (i.e. what it is like to experience the perception of the color red, for instance), subjective consciousness, abstract thought, the inherent quality of "aboutness", and so on. These qualities are totally immaterial and are in an entirely different and higher category or realm of existence.

Whatever created the inherently extremely complex and intricate machinery of life, much of which is irreducibly complex, had to be a very high conscious focused intelligence, not mechanical computing machines which no matter how complex are incapable of abstract thought, planning, creativity, intentionality or agentness, etc.

Accordingly, the revelations of the research Shapiro discusses about the inherent levels of complex computing intelligence exhibited by cells and other organisms, cannot be the agents responsible for designing life, certainly including the very biological computing mechanisms essential to the cell that he discusses. And it doesn't look like these lines of research can ever reveal the real source of the designs of life.

You are not talking common sense, but trying to offer an imaginative narrative, about me and the scientists who express themselves on Third Way.

Maybe scientists use language that is obscure to you, but is effective in communicating data based facts.  Accusing some of the world's most successful scientists with false accusations is weak argument. 

Surely you have seen a researcher almost get the sack because he wrote a book about Lamark, and therefore somewhat cast doubt on Neo-Darwinism. Is it imaginative to assume that others, who also want to cast doubt on Darwinism have to use a circuitous route?

I don't in any way blame the Third Way scientists for doing this, and I hope they continue to produce challenging results, because like you, I want Darwinism to be accepted as little more than a myth.