'marvels of specificity'? We get the drift, Meyer finds it improbable.
The general strategy for this chapter (and preceding chapters) is to engender a sense of disbelief in the reader.
It is a bit of a stretch, and not a little arrogant to make this comparison. Among other things, journal publication was not the standard mode of publication.
Where? Wikipedia: Before joining the DI, Meyer was a professor at Whitworth College.
Whitworth, founded in 1890, is a private, residential, liberal arts institution affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). Whitworth's mission is to provide its diverse student body an education of the mind and heart, equipping its graduates to honor God, follow Christ, and serve humanity. Whitworth's community of teacher-scholars is committed to rigorous and open intellectual inquiry and to the integration of Christian faith and learning.
Apart from the fact that there are steric and other intratomic factors at play, I don't think that there are any reasons to suppose that purely chemical-physical interactions between bases are behind the assembly of DNA. This is another straw man argument.
This doesn't seem right to me. It means that this garbled form of information complexity requres us to know whether the sequence has a function at all. Does this mean that Specified complexityy/Specified information/Information content changes value with our understanding?
I wonder which research institute would accept a proposal from a group including a person who wasn't aware of the proposal!
And I wonder what the institute is/was!
This paragraph is nothing short of a dishonest straw man. How does Meyer know enough to specify what sequence and how long early macromolecules may have been, or indeed how specific their sequence needs to have been?
Whitworth University is a private Christian liberal arts college located in Spokane, Washington, United States, that offers Bachelor's and Master's degrees in a variety of academic disciplines. It is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). The university, which has an enrollment of nearly 3,000 students, offers 60 undergraduate and graduate programs.[6]
Formerly Whitworth College, the board of trustees voted to change the institution's name to Whitworth University in 2006, which became effective July 1, 2007.[7]
This lengthy sentence probably encapsulates the difference between the formerly absolutely religious world-view where gods exist and a more modern view where the existence of gods needs to be proven
Meyer's case is based on biased, religious, preconceptions and fuelled by selective readings from the history of molecular biology, coupled with a tendency to set up straw men and finding them easy to knock down.
Tony Mega is at Whitwoth College/University, a religious institute. Carries on Meyer's strategy of quoting and communing with ID supporters or those pre-disposed to take a deist world-view.
Meyer is being really devious and dishonest here. Yes, present day organisms are complex in this way, but this is different from what may have been the case at the origin of life.
Not sure why Meyer is so excited about this. The bases are chemically similar, and anyway, replication of a DNA equivalent would be too complex if a different reaction had to be carried out for each base. Chemical evolution would see to it that this would be weeded out.
Chapter 6 has been a risible romp through the history of science, trying to make a case for religion and perception of design, often taking an anachronistic view.
Dean H. Kenyon is Professor Emeritus of Biology at San Francisco State University and an intelligent design proponent. He is also the author of Of Pandas and People, a controversial book on intelligent design.
He's clearly a creationist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_H._Kenyon
One might add that the 'designing intelligence' needs to be proven, and needed to be designed itself. Furthermore how did the 'designing intelligence' actually do what Meyer is ascribing to it?
This isn't my understanding - I thought it was more to do with demonstrating natural selection. It's also much disliked by ID creationists, who continually misrepresent it.
This paragraph is a lie, as demonstrated by the Wedge Document and the history of ID creationism. Roger Olsen Thaxton earned a doctorate in physical chemistry from Iowa State University, and an Evangelical christian. Walter Bradley is a retired[1] professor of engineering, lecturer, old Earth creationist[2][3][4] and an advocate of the concept of intelligent design. Roger L. Olsen received his Bachelor in Science degree in Chemistry in 1972 and his Ph.D. degree in Geochemistry in 1979. Both degrees were from the Colorado School of Mines.
This isn't actually true in the real world of origin of life research, actually only creationists think the claim is that living organisms sprang into existence fully formed as they are now.
GrumpyBob is reading
highlights & comments
Hahahah, Meyer loads with his belief that the attempt failed.
Nobody proposes chance you dimwit Meyer!
Wasn't this to domwith evolution, not origin of life?
What conference in 1985?
He's a comedian.
Of course this only works becaue we have experience of someone walking in snowshoes.
'marvels of specificity'? We get the drift, Meyer finds it improbable.
The general strategy for this chapter (and preceding chapters) is to engender a sense of disbelief in the reader.
So, what is the causal adequacy od the "designer"? Howvdid this supernatural entity actually make all that ID creationists propose happen?
It is a bit of a stretch, and not a little arrogant to make this comparison. Among other things, journal publication was not the standard mode of publication.
Nobofy fucking well says it's a random process, that assertion betrays Meyer's creationism.
Where? Wikipedia: Before joining the DI, Meyer was a professor at Whitworth College.
Whitworth, founded in 1890, is a private, residential, liberal arts institution affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). Whitworth's mission is to provide its diverse student body an education of the mind and heart, equipping its graduates to honor God, follow Christ, and serve humanity. Whitworth's community of teacher-scholars is committed to rigorous and open intellectual inquiry and to the integration of Christian faith and learning.
It is Origin of Species, not Origin of Life
This is nonsense.
I am not sure this is true: chromatin is still used and is distinct from chromosomes
Of course not, but no-one really suggests otherwise.
Some do, e.g. RNase. But of course what in early Earth means proteins would denature? And simple proteins might not have this problem.
And again...
Good grief he's referring to Dr Seuss now!
Apart from the fact that there are steric and other intratomic factors at play, I don't think that there are any reasons to suppose that purely chemical-physical interactions between bases are behind the assembly of DNA. This is another straw man argument.
This conflates metabolism and anabolism, doesn't it?
Usage of 'specified' again, I think it's intended to be leading...
This section is more parables!
Why does Meyer think this would be the first step? - if he does, he's a fool.
Hoyle was a notorious ignoramus when it came to biology.
What?
Usually it's referred to as chemical evolution.
I'm a bit appalled that anyone let Meyer loose teaching about biology.
Oh FFS!
Entirely reasonable proposal for the time.
"the DNA enigma"?
Once again this reveals Meyer's theological past and present.
The first two pages of this chapter are clearly a scene-setter for Meyer as an equally visionary outsider.
Each
Here we are again.
This doesn't seem right to me. It means that this garbled form of information complexity requres us to know whether the sequence has a function at all. Does this mean that Specified complexityy/Specified information/Information content changes value with our understanding?
So what?
Warm-blooded dinosaurs
Still un-defined.
Goodness me, Meyer fancies himself as a new Watson-Crick!
I wonder which research institute would accept a proposal from a group including a person who wasn't aware of the proposal!
And I wonder what the institute is/was!
A deliberately muddied definition of informatin.
1963! 1963! 1963! Good grief he's not exactly up to date, is he.
After billions of years of biological evolution? They thought that?
Using Expelled is really rather dubious. It's a poor film that tells lies.
This paragraph is nothing short of a dishonest straw man. How does Meyer know enough to specify what sequence and how long early macromolecules may have been, or indeed how specific their sequence needs to have been?
<sarcasm>Good grief what an astounding insight!</sarcasm>. Why would you epect here to be?
Meyer is 'economical with the truth' here. Not all residues will be vital.
This assertion does not make *any* sense.
Still not defined
Whitworth University is a private Christian liberal arts college located in Spokane, Washington, United States, that offers Bachelor's and Master's degrees in a variety of academic disciplines. It is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). The university, which has an enrollment of nearly 3,000 students, offers 60 undergraduate and graduate programs.[6]
Formerly Whitworth College, the board of trustees voted to change the institution's name to Whitworth University in 2006, which became effective July 1, 2007.[7]
This is a serious over-stretch from an analogy.
Isn't this an exponential growth?
Good grief! I don't think anyone would argue this!
MODERN life!!!!
This lengthy sentence probably encapsulates the difference between the formerly absolutely religious world-view where gods exist and a more modern view where the existence of gods needs to be proven
Did it indeed? Examples?
So, after something of a political ad hominem attack, we get to Oparin's real reasons...
Meyer's case is based on biased, religious, preconceptions and fuelled by selective readings from the history of molecular biology, coupled with a tendency to set up straw men and finding them easy to knock down.
Creationist, fundamentalist, editor of discredited Pandas
The Biologic Institute is remarkably unproductive, scientifically speaking.
Tony Mega is at Whitwoth College/University, a religious institute. Carries on Meyer's strategy of quoting and communing with ID supporters or those pre-disposed to take a deist world-view.
The way this paragraph is written seems to betray a poor understanding of genetics.
Meyer is being really devious and dishonest here. Yes, present day organisms are complex in this way, but this is different from what may have been the case at the origin of life.
Once again Meyer confuses present day life with emerging life.
More ad hominems - Physics is of course an appropriate discipline for X-ray crystallography.
Whe doesn't seem to define what he means by 'elementary particles'
Robert Jackson Marks II is a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University and proponent of intelligent design.
But most of these expressions are metaphors and not literal.
He really likes this straw man
What exactly does this mean?
Life does appear to be a combination of compounds!
Except to mathematicians, it seems.
Meyer's usage of 'sequencing' is annoying.
This is a bit of a stretch. What else *can* expain it, given that everything that goes on in a living cell is governed by physics and chemistry?
Again, this is a poor analogy for ID and the oigin of life
Staw man argument
Does Meyer know about 'wobble' and amber-type suppressors?
It's not information.
This paragraph is really absurdly poor.
Not so much intuition, more a definition.
Integrated complexity?
But if Laplace's nebular hypothesis seeks to explain the origin of the solar system, it's obvious that life wouldn't have existed eternally.
He's pulling a 'chicken and egg' stunt. Why presume that all this complexity was required at the start of life? Because he's going to argue for god.
Bizarre statement!
This assumption is far from correct, as anyone with event the most rudimentary understanding of molecular biology would realise.
Probably what we'd call a micelle now.
I don't think I would class proteins as having 'biological information'.
And what exactlt does this mean?
Whenevr Meyer tells these stories, I feelmgenuinely sorry for his students, who must suffer these silly parables/analogies
I'm wondering at this point what relevance this historical overview has. Science progresses after all.
Meyer really is an undereducated oik.
Has Meyer mentioned catalysis?
Of course his proposal was made before the structure of DNA and the outline of the genetic code was known.
How patronising!
Well, here he goes
Not according non-ID people, and not within science.
Another attempt to falsely ascribe a failure to Darwin
Undefined
"now possess" is crucially wrong. Meyer continually seems to expect present day biomolecules to be those which (hypothetically) formed pre-biotically.
Wasn't this effectively stolen from Harvard?
But the former follows fom the latter.
It's a f***ing joke!
Poor usage of terminology.
Specificity of sequence is a dodgy concept.
Need examples
Not sure why Meyer is so excited about this. The bases are chemically similar, and anyway, replication of a DNA equivalent would be too complex if a different reaction had to be carried out for each base. Chemical evolution would see to it that this would be weeded out.
We're getting mystical here.
I think this misses the point. The random number could have been someone else's number, area codes reduce complexity, etc.
Intellectually foolish
What is meant by specifically sequenced amino acids?
Polanyi can't have said this surly? It must be Meyer's take...no citation.
Chapter 6 has been a risible romp through the history of science, trying to make a case for religion and perception of design, often taking an anachronistic view.
Dean H. Kenyon is Professor Emeritus of Biology at San Francisco State University and an intelligent design proponent. He is also the author of Of Pandas and People, a controversial book on intelligent design.
He's clearly a creationist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_H._Kenyon
Cyanogen is actually (CN)2
Note - they are not biologists. Why do non- biologists think they know more about biology than biologists do?
One might add that the 'designing intelligence' needs to be proven, and needed to be designed itself. Furthermore how did the 'designing intelligence' actually do what Meyer is ascribing to it?
Another Discovery Institute drone.
'admission' rather a loaded term
This isn't my understanding - I thought it was more to do with demonstrating natural selection. It's also much disliked by ID creationists, who continually misrepresent it.
Formally, one might presume that other possibilities may have (or could have) arisen.
I think this is no longer true. And probably wasn't when Meyer wrote this.
Haven't we shifted here from 'mind' to 'a mind'?
And here we go...
Nothing!
Straw man
A parable? A parable?
So how is this 'improbability' calculated? I think we have returned to the functionality issue again.
How did Orgel define 'specified complexity'?
I hope Meyer is actually going to come up with a proposal as to how the designer did all this.
Again.
Which is why nobody hypothesises that's what happened!
Of course he's talkifng about present day organisms, not the pre-biotic stages. There are catalytic RNAs known.
This is nonsense. It's relying on the information/code metaphors as literally true.
Fred Hoyle was famous for bonkers 'science'
Presumably only when dealing with Shannon information
I'm appalled he's let loose on college students.
Reference to Gates
'functional integration'?
Well it is pretty obvious.
This paragraph is a lie, as demonstrated by the Wedge Document and the history of ID creationism. Roger Olsen Thaxton earned a doctorate in physical chemistry from Iowa State University, and an Evangelical christian. Walter Bradley is a retired[1] professor of engineering, lecturer, old Earth creationist[2][3][4] and an advocate of the concept of intelligent design. Roger L. Olsen received his Bachelor in Science degree in Chemistry in 1972 and his Ph.D. degree in Geochemistry in 1979. Both degrees were from the Colorado School of Mines.
Check this citation
What is 'specified information'
Meyer moves back from rigorous mathematical concepts of information to more colloquial forms.
This note doesn't lead to anything but a reference to a book, I think.
I don't think this is an accurate version of origin of biomolecules
It's a metaphor!
Oooh!
I don't think anyone uses the concept of specified information except intelligent design creationists!
Lightning
Hmmmm...
But nobody proposes this what happened!
More likely he had te design udea before he started!
No - these are essentially bogus concepts.
I think analogising the genetic code with software can be very misleading. As is the use of 'specified'.
This is irrelevant.
We've got the beginnings of the 'I don't understand it, so god did it'
This demains merely a claim. Meyer has no evidence beyond his own disbelief in his own straw man argument
This claim has been debunked. tinyurl.com/3qdodc8
But in the absence of deciive evidence, each hypothesis remains on the table.
Meyer's phrase here assumes design.
Very simplistic.
It means nothing except Meyers's straw man gets knocked down.
What the heck does he mean by this?
Another expression indicative of Meyer's lack of biological expertise/understanding.
Except it isn't.
This isn't actually true in the real world of origin of life research, actually only creationists think the claim is that living organisms sprang into existence fully formed as they are now.
Why does Meyer assume that all proteins cannot replicate? Why does he assume the ds DNA is the only way this can happen.
Meyer misrepresents the Sternberg affair: Sternberg wasn't disciplined, despite breaking rules in ensuring Meyer's paper got published.
And the stuck record again.
No discussion
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