[D Man]

Oh, that old chesnut.

First off, that point doesnt contradict evolution at all. You're basically asking 'where did the universe come from'.

And second, NOWHERE. Nothing you can say anything meaningfull about whatsoever any more than you can comment on the weather on jupiter from a jail cell in turkey, save that whatever it was it didnt have any rules of causality, so the idea of causing the universe is invalid.

Edit: Plus, mechanical analogies, like lego, are invalid for evolution. You mix lego together and shake it, it doesnt connect. You mix chemicals together and shake them, they make something new.

Please try to strip away all the bullshit analogies that you've supplanted the matter at hand with. They're getting in the way of you understanding how this works.

[Dolorous Menhir]

The Rope;141998 said:

Where do the processes come from? Where do the chemicals come from?
Are you familiar with lego bricks? They come in sets, and you have to assemble them. Every piece in the set is important to the overall design.
Take every piece, toss them in a box, and jumble it al together. Let me know what kind of design you get.

Hint: the answer is not "intelligent".

[The Rope]

Hehe... exactly the response i wanted... sorry
So if we can't relate it to anything, how exactly are we to understand it?
And throwing just any two chemicals together won't necessarily make a new one. they have to be compatible, or another chemical or external energy must be applied to make them compatible.

[Cause]

Chewy;142084 said:

What we are seeing are processes that we cannot reproduce without resorting to the chemical "factories" - living things that made them. We can artificially produce only a few amino acids through non-biological means. They come out randomly chiral. That means half are useless, worse deadly.

Do you know what chirality means. Do you undertsand what causes it? Can you see why for a cell using enzymes with unique specificities they wont produce chiral molecules. Its not magic.

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They now have to be sheltered (by the researcher) from the surrounding environment to survive. They have to be enclosed in a membrane. We need 20 kinds of them to create a protein molecule. The configuration of the string of amino acids has to be exactly right.

This is true of all chemicals. Its also the reason that living organisms are the greatest homeostatic machines on earth. What is your point.

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In 1996, scientists around the world, “armed with their best computer programs, competed to solve one of the most complex problems in biology: how a single protein, made from a long string of amino acids, folds itself into the intricate shape that determines the role it plays in life. . . . The result, succinctly put, was this: the computers lost and the proteins won. . . . Scientists have estimated that for an average-sized protein, made from 100 amino acids, solving the folding problem by trying every possibility would take 10^27 (a billion billion billion) years.�—The New York Times. :confused:

More irrevelant information with nothing to do with evolution. A hundred years ago we never even Nuclear magnetic imaging or x-ray chrystalography to identify the structures of petides. Today we do. A hundred years ago we never had the techniques to identify the peptide sequence today we do. Today we do. Their are not multiple possibilities for a given set of condition the laws of thermodynamics favour one configuration. This is the one you will reach. When these laws are understood and the computer power found well be able to do it.

Its hardly surising that its difficult to work out the configuration of a peptide when one must calculate the effects of the laws of thermodynamics, the repulsion atraction of evry proton and electron. The effect of the limitations of actual space. But again whats your point? It has nothing to do with evolution

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Even after we make one protein. We only need 2000 more for the cell to function. Your odds just jumped another couple hundred zeros. Chance? It cannot account for it. :hand:

Since you like analogies. You dont have to know how the tyres on a car are made to realise they are the things the car rolls on. You dont need to understand the excact changes of what happens when you put your foot on the accelerator to know the car will move.

We today dont yet even know the structure of evry protein in the human body. But we do know its function.

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A snowflake has no comparison to a protein. Snowflakes are random. Amino acids and proteins are not random. They perform specific functions. They are amazingly accurate. They take a second to produce and with with amazing accuracy. How does a process that could barely happen by chance, cannot be duplicated by scientific manipulation, blows away the most intelligent minds, happen without guidance?

Because you have chosen to see no other possibility and cloud the point with irrevelant nonsense. Amino acids can be made randomly. they can form random peptide bonds creating random proteins.

The idea of a vitalism theory that the chemicals of living organisms are fundamentally different from inanimate matter, and that they can only be produced in a living body based on some magic force has been disproved decades ago.

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

[D Man]

The Rope;142042 said:

Hehe... exactly the response i wanted... sorry
So if we can't relate it to anything, how exactly are we to understand it?
And throwing just any two chemicals together won't necessarily make a new one. they have to be compatible, or another chemical or external energy must be applied to make them compatible.

Who says we're supposed to, or have to?

All we know is that its different, and the only specific things we can say about it is it didnt have space or time, and therefore not causality or energy, and therefore everything we've understood about this universe cant be applied to not this universe.

And on the chemistry thing: its true, many reactions have activation energies. I dont know what you're trying to achieve by pointing this out? Invalidating the rose of chemistry in evolution because of activation energies? Seriously, whats your point? If you have an example of a reaction that needs a higher activation energy than is reasonably naturally available (and bear in mind there that you're gonna have to go over the level of evergy in lightning: a not unreasonable natural source of energy!) then you have a point. In which case, what is it, or are they?

[The Rope]

I was pointing out that random chemicals don't randomly combine. Oxygen and nitrogen, for instance, dont combne without some sort of other binding chemical they can both bind to. thats all. try not to think so much about what i say, we've all established that i'm not as well-educated as you. My arguments are pretty damned simple. I was just responding to something someone else said. (it was to the effect "throw legos together, you get no structure, throw chemicals together, you do.")
But you're too concerned with being smarter than me. I acquiesce - you are more intelligent. I'll leave now.

[Cause]

How can you say in one sentance you dont know what your talking about and than tel us were not respecting your opinion. Random chemcials do infact randomly combine. Its why you store them seperatly.

http://en.wikipedia..../Nitrogen_oxide

Further so long as a reaction has a negative free gibs energy change it is spontanous. Whilst its activation energies might determine its rate so long as it has that neg gree enrgy change it can and will happen. Eventually.

[Dolorous Menhir]

People should not argue from knowledge of chemistry and physics that they don't actually possess.

[Aimless]

Re. probability: http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&lr=lang...ng_en%7Clang_sv

Re. human limitations, what's your point? Humans can't design the molecules, ergo nature can't have evolved them? How is that logical? There are a host of things we haven't been able to design ourselves that we've been able to develop using good old evolution.

Re. random chance, you're right, evolution isn't random. Mutations are random, but selection, which drives evolution, is not random (http://www.talkorigi...onceptions.html

Re. evolution:
http://www.ataricomm...ad.php?t=553173

Cheers!

[Cause]

Chewy;144045 said:

The biological equivalent of left and right. A left glove will not fit on a right hand. Molecules have to "fit" into the receptors for them to perform the function. But if they are backwards, they don't work correctly. Nature is very one sided in chirality. The complexity of these molecules is astounding. The rubics cube to the millionth degree. (I cheated and read a book to solve it because I got impatient) Nature figured it out without yours or my help and we can see it happening, but we can't do it ourselves.

Okay great you seem to undertsnad what it means But now I would draw your attention to your own sentace above I bolded. You are correct molecules must have the correct chirality to fit into an enzyme with a unique specificity for it. But ask yourself now, if its fitted into an enzyme what happens to its reaction potentials, It is curtailed. It may now only bond to certain chemicals at certain orientations due to steric interferance etc from the enzyme resulting in the same perfect product evry time. Its a simple process and only one chiral molecule is created.

Compare to throwing in chemicals in a pot and heating to 300 degrees, Those chemicals can bond with almost anything from almost any angle. Chirality results. But even in such conditions its often possible and probable for one of a range of possible products to result. As its most stable and had lowest activation energy etc. You need to look at the reaction mechanism and evaluate what you see. Theirs nothing special about life and chirality.

Early life would have suffered from two chiralities.

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Regarding other responses. Chemicals do reorganize themselves. The thing is, the simple reorganization that is necessary for life is beyond our ability to simulate.

Please expand. Uncertain to what you refer.

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We cannot do it without using the little chemical factories that made them in the first place. Not magic, but highly complex, organized, structured, exact, smart, intelligent beyond us...not random, not chance. The "magic", I think would be if their were no intelligent direction. That would really be a miracle!

Your problem here I think is one of confusing chemical and physical laws and the effects they have on the world with intelligence. Your personifying inaminate laws, seeing god where their is no need. When you say that water always flows from a resevoir of low concentration to one of high concentration it seems amazing. But its really just an effect of statistics and random motion of molecules. Theirs nothing smart about life. Anymore than a ball rolling donw a hill due to gravity. Life is simply the best possible fit for those molecules according to the laws that govern the universe

[cauthon]

I've a question on evolution theory itself. It has been argued that the moral values we hold dear in our society can be perfectly explained by evolution, because it makes much more sens to survive as a species. Perhaps, but then again, if we heal the ill, the genetically 'retarded' (people with hereditary diseases), if we allow the 'bad' to procreate, how execatly does this benefit the evolutionary scheme? After all, weeding out the bad DNA should be more beneficial. Any thoughts on this?


Mins you, I am NOT proposing not taking care of the ill etc. I am certainly not proposing to eliminate the right of haveing children for anybody at all!!!!!

[Aimless]

With the possible exception of the Golden Rule

[cauthon]

Yes, but we're leaving lots of rubbish in the pool as well. Most people do not think it's wise to use genetics to enhance the children we conceive. So basically, our improvement might halt our advance on a genetic level imo.

[stone monkey]

@ Cuathon - What you appear to be talking about is Culture, of which religion is merely a part. One interesting point that's been raised is that in the very far future (should we survive that far, obviously) humans might not have physically evolved all that much from where we are now, mainly because our technology and culture evolve faster than we ever could in the physical sense so physical evolution will be unnecessary.

[Illuyankas]

Indeed, we might get to the point where all those bits of rubbish in the pool will be replaced by non-organic parts, then all of the pool's contents, so that we'll become a race of minds in machines. Sort of a cyborg to Cybermen to sentient blenders progression, only we'll be giant immortal robots kicking ass. Like Transformers, but with less toy adverts.

[stone monkey]

Nah, it'll be the Singularity first.

[Illuyankas]

stone monkey;146255 said:

Nah, it'll be the Singularity first.

Awesome, truly. I'm disappointed I missed it before. I suppose a situation like Bank's Culture would be close to the ideal result of the Singularity.

I'd still stick my mind in a giant robot and beat the crap out of other giant robots on a deserted planet somewhere, but that's too much off topic. Didn't I start an immortality thread a while ago?