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P.Rob
Social climber
Pacomia, Ca - Y Que?
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Feb 16, 2012 - 12:32pm PT
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Professor Henry F. (Fritz) Schaefer is one of the most distinguished physical scientists in the world. The U.S. News and World Report cover story of December 23, 1991 speculated that Professor Schaefer is a “five time nominee for the Nobel Prize.” He has received four of the most prestigious awards of the American Chemical Society, as well as the most highly esteemed award (the Centenary Medal) given to a non-British subject by London’s Royal Society of Chemistry. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Moreover, his general interest lectures on science and religion have riveted large audiences in nearly all the major universities in the U.S.A. and in Beijing, Berlin, Budapest, Calcutta, Cape Town, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, Paris, Prague, Sarajevo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Sofia, St. Petersburg, Sydney, Tokyo, Warsaw, Zagreb, and Zürich.
For 18 years Dr. Schaefer was a faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley, where he remains Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus. Since 1987 Dr. Schaefer has been Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry at the University of Georgia.
http://leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/docs/scientists.html
The above biography and link is for Professor Schaefer and his essay “Scientists and Their Gods”. I believe that you will find Professor Schaefer has a resume that is every bit as “impressive” as our esteemed Dr.H. I do not and will not enter into the fray of discussion around evolution. My issue is the on going archaic statement that faith & reason, science and religion do not and can not have effective discussions and relationships. It is a false dichotomy….. Oh well … please review with an honest and open mind.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 16, 2012 - 02:50pm PT
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Natural Selection runs into problems when trying to use it to explain biology that is irreducably complex. ie, where a system of many parts can not develop over time through small mutations
the major problem with this assertion is that we have no quantitative definition of "complex." To a large extent as it is used "complex" is very much in the eye of the beholder.
Until the critics of evolution, whose arguments are based on "complexity," can provide such a quantitative definition, this argument can be regarded as only a conjecture or a supposition.
It doesn't matter what the credentials of the arguer are, they have to provide such definition critical to their argument... put up or shut up as it were.
I haven't seen such a definition. Does anyone have a definition or a reference to the definition?
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Feb 16, 2012 - 02:57pm PT
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P. Rob,
Thanks for posting the link to that lecture and article. Good stuff.
There is no problem between science and faith (or Christian faith). Both are 2 very different tools to answer 2 very different questions. Both are after the truth. They are complimentary to one another.
Many, many of our founding fathers of Modern science were men of faith and men of science. No problem. They were more enlightened than many modern scientists today in so many ways.
Again people, watch: "NOVA: Newton's Dark Secrets"
Those who fear faith, fear knowing about GOD, ridicule and make fun of those who do have faith, fear knowing about the truth.
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P.Rob
Social climber
Pacomia, Ca - Y Que?
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Feb 16, 2012 - 04:19pm PT
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“Until the critics of evolution, whose arguments are based on "complexity," can provide such a quantitative definition, this argument can be regarded as only a conjecture or a supposition”.
DR.H,
The below article and subsequent quote from it illustrate that the definition of complexity is not limited to the creationist, but is a fundamental question in the discussion, regardless on one’s world view..
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/04/the-complexity/
“You always get into trouble if you say these things out loud with creationists around. It’s not that the whole theory of evolution is going to come tumbling down — there’s no doubt that evolution has taken place on the earth, and that we definitely understand certain parts of it and that they fit together.
But there really are fundamental conceptual problems with the whole notion of fitness and therefore the whole notion of selection, and therefore in how evolution actually takes place in evolutionary systems of which biology is one example, but there are others — the meme, the evolution of societies or of technology, or in principle any kind of system where new things are created that didn’t exist before”.
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Jonnnyyyzzz
Trad climber
San Diego,CA
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Feb 16, 2012 - 04:40pm PT
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Ed I agree what your saying and enjoy exploring these questions hopefully with an open mind. Creation/evolution ether truth I would find intresting. Will you let me know How you think evolution/natural selection plays its role in the start of the first life. isn't it like the chicken and egg. without genetic code and the passing of traits through self replication natural selection dosn't have a chance to work its magic. From what I understand amino acids don't really self attract and fold up into any meaningful protean that dose anything like work. Without DNA/RNA transcription within the cell how do you get self replicating life. Wouldn't evolution need to show how this could reasonably happen randomly before design can be ruled out as a potential for the start of life. It seems to me that The Complexity of DNA and role it play in living things is getting close to IR complex. What do you think?
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Feb 16, 2012 - 04:40pm PT
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Do you really think Christianity is as powerful now as it was two hundred years ago, Dingus?
Short answer - yes.
Do you think a self-described atheist could get elected to President of the US?
That's kind of like what everyone said about "black" before Obama.
I'm not the poster referred to above, but I think a non-religious person could be elected president soon. Now I don't know if s/he went around as an "active" atheist instead of just being agnostic--someone with that frame of mind wouldn't have the skill set to go far in politics anyway.
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P.Rob
Social climber
Pacomia, Ca - Y Que?
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Feb 16, 2012 - 07:00pm PT
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//"There is no problem between science and faith (or Christian faith). Both are 2 very different tools to answer 2 very different questions. Both are after the truth. They are complimentary to one another".
"Complimentary? Lol, got some examples?
DMT"//
DMT,
The following quote was cut from a previous post I made(http://leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/docs/scientists.html); . I am not sure that it answers your question, but one has to admit that it is quite an interesting statement in light of the source. You seem to have an active intelligence DMT, and a right decent guy. There is more out there, if one is honest in their skepticism and is willing to seek. Much of what I read here is so vitriolic and angry, and seems be motivated by things other seeking truth. Even your post – on this and other threads, seems to have an overarching pain & hurt, stemmed from real life experiences, that make you reject any other consideration …....
Allan Sandage
The world's greatest observational cosmologist, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution, was called the Grand Old Man of cosmology by The New York Times when he won a $1 million prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He said:
“The nature of God is not to be found within any part of the findings of science. For that, one must turn to the Scriptures”.
In one book, Sandage was asked the classic question, "Can one be a scientist and a Christian?" and he replied, "Yes, I am." Ethnically Jewish, Sandage became a Christian at the age of fifty—if that doesn't prove that it's never too late, I don't know what does!
This is the man who is responsible for our best values for the age of the universe: something like 14 billion years. Yet, when this brilliant cosmologist is asked to explain how one can be a scientist and a Christian, he doesn't turn to astronomy, but rather to biology:
“The world is too complicated in all its parts and interconnections to be due to chance…I am convinced that the existence of life with all its order and each of its organisms is simply too well put together”.
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Gene
climber
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Feb 16, 2012 - 07:03pm PT
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We will never evolve as a species until we know the difference between complimentary and complementary.
Sorry - today is my day to be a jerk.
g
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Feb 16, 2012 - 07:36pm PT
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if fundamentalist believers start ganging up on you, the solution is simple. refer them to the works of the french jesuit philosopher, pierre teilhard de chardin (1881-1955). teilhard was a real scientist, a paleontologist, and a catholic priest. he worked the whole system of christian belief and darwinistic evolution into a grand philosophical scheme. his books are over the heads of most people, which may help quite a bit in keeping uneducated people out of your hair.
be sure to emphasize that you don't necessarily agree with teilhard, just that the two points of view have been masterfully reconciled by at least one important thinker.
me, i think jesus was an alien hybrid.
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P.Rob
Social climber
Pacomia, Ca - Y Que?
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Feb 16, 2012 - 08:03pm PT
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Lol Mr. DMT – though to my defence (Anglo spelling) I was just cutting and pasting others quotes – though it does make an interesting argument. I also agree that the powers that be tend to be cut from the same cloth in many ways- the proverbial – or is that metaphorical – different sides of the same evil coin…. And I do stand on my early assessment – ya a pretty decent chap. ……….
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 17, 2012 - 01:20am PT
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the Wired article that P.Robb links is very breezy and has a perilous mention of "complex systems"... but there is nothing there that describes what is meant by complexity in evolution.
I tracked down M. Paczuski who was interviewed in the article using in the ArXiv preprint server http://arxiv.org/ and found one article that she had posted on evolution...
http://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/9607066.pdf
this is not in reference to "complex systems."
You can get an idea of what a physicist is groping around for in the idea of complex systems in the Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_systems
where we find the line in the introduction: "A consensus regarding a single universal definition of complex system does not yet exist."
There is no measure of complexity, and certainly not one that addresses the issues that seem central to the criticism of evolution that simple cannot evolve into complex. The concept of "irreducible complexity" does not have a formal description, it cannot be quantified, and it cannot be measured. Right now, it exists as an opinion.
What physicists like Paczuski do is to apply statistical mechanical concepts to systems, often both in an analytic manner and often simultaneously through computer models that implement the features of the systems they are studying.
The multi-scale nature of evolution, that it operates at the gene level through the planetary ecology in important and non-trivial ways is certainly a "complex system," that is, it exhibits behavior that does not reduce to simple rules.
However, it is possible for systems with simple rules governing the action of interacting agents to have exhibit complex behavior. Conway's "Game of Life" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life); is an example of cellular automatons, cellular automatons are the subject of intense study... see the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automaton
We don't know yet how to predict the behavior of these systems built from simple pieces but exhibiting "complex behavior" by which is meant, behavior that isn't explicitly programmed in but arises from the simple interactions of the agents.
This is relevant since the analysis of how genes produce proteins, which are then used to build life happens as a set of relatively simple chemical interactions which are regulated in a particular manner to create those proteins.
A particular analysis of genes using these "complex system" ideas has lead to some rather amazing results. You can read about the general ideas in this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_regulatory_network
these are not just "theoretic" exercises, but have actual practical applications, for instance in studying the virulence of bacterial, of Yersinia pestis the cause of plague. These systems of regulation networks which are the "algorithm" of gene expression are complex in the network sense, see the paper Evolution and Dynamics of Regulatory Architectures Controlling Polymyxin B Resistance in Enteric Bacteria
the abstract's first sentence: "Complex genetic networks consist of structural modules that determine the levels and timing of a cellular response."
Not only are these systems complex, but we can understand their complexity, and we can study that organism's evolution of these complex networks, see for instance: Molecular Darwinian Evolution of Virulence in Yersinia pestis.
The point here is that the claim that complexity cannot arise from evolution is not supported in any way by our understanding of evolution, in fact it is just the opposite, we start to see how the "complex" is built up out of simple rules. We are starting to be able to "read" the genome and predict what it will do, how it expresses under various cellular conditions. How, step by step, these genes govern life.
I would be interested in any discussion of complexity that demonstrates the impossibility of evolution, such a discussion starts out first by defining complexity.
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Jonnnyyyzzz
Trad climber
San Diego,CA
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Feb 17, 2012 - 02:04am PT
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Some level of an Improbable object or event with a recognizable pattern or function. Would probably be a good starting base for defining complexity and design but I'm not the guy that could work out a formula for it. why not give it a go ED.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 17, 2012 - 04:19am PT
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I am not suggesting that this has anything to do with the science of evolution
then why bring it up in a thread about teaching evolution?
and I'm not at all sure what you mean by "evolutionist," all biologists are...
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Feb 17, 2012 - 01:10pm PT
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I think the problem arises out of creationists' assumption that there must necessarily be an a priori 'guiding hand' for any disorganized random state to emerge into a highly organized system. Complex coordinated systems seem to suggest a coordinator,i.e., a unifying emergent purpose or force that overrides the non-unified constituents in a disorganized state. The more complex, the more the requirement for an a priori causation.
These non-contingent assumptions are based in an underestimation of the demonstrable ability of primal proteins to organize into ever more complex life forms for the explicit and long term purpose of enjoying warm showers, good dinners, and a little round of Beethoven's greatest hits.
-----
I think some of the challenge here is that evolution and mechanical evaluations are effective in explaining the "how" but are less than useful in providing the "why," which largely is not a relevant question in their investigations. Because "why" is no more present in the atomic stirrings than "mind" is clearly present in the brain, "why," perforce, becomes an irrelevant concern, as it should be to those engaged in quantifying.
Surprising to many is that many so-called spiritual traditions also consider the "why" question largely irrelevant and simply focus, instead, on what is.
JL
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Feb 17, 2012 - 02:24pm PT
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I have no problem with Evolution. It's real. It happens.
There are many examples we can see in our own short life-time here on Earth. Microorganisms like bacteria etc., mutate and change all the time. Disease pathogens become resistant to treatment all the time. They are changing and becoming more resilient. Evolution at work. And this can happen in fairly short amounts of time.
However, please show me how organic molecules (non-living building blocks), wherever they are found, even on meteorites, how do these non-living organic molecules first form tissue, then an organ, then a system of organs to produce the first simplest living single celled organism?
My good friend, once climbing partner, and my first Bio professor in college always said this truth, "The simplest single celled living organism is far more complex than the largest non-living system or phenomenon."
How exactly did the first non-living building block organic molecules do all of that? How exactly did that happen? How did the first non-living matter become life?
Hey, once life is already here it isn't difficult to see how life begets life. And how the mechanics of Evolution can work from that point on.
How did life exactly first begin from a strict evolutionary point of view, without any deity or other spiritual or faith based method and causation?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Theistic evolution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 17, 2012 - 04:32pm PT
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Klimmer, we don't know yet, it is the subject of much research.
some of this can be found in the Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
Certainly we can approach it as a science question, and pursue an answer in that domain. As I have said many times before, science knows when it gets things wrong...
Standby...
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rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
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Feb 17, 2012 - 05:18pm PT
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However, please show me how organic molecules (non-living building blocks), wherever they are found, even on meteorites, how do these non-living organic molecules first form tissue, then an organ, then a system of organs to produce the first simplest living single celled organism?
Are you not capable of reading a book about evolution? If you are not being antagonistic and really want to know, the information is out there. It's quite deep and interesting if not discounted from the get-go.
There are even theories about how no-living things can evolve through mutation and natural selection. The idea is actually quite interesting and of course unbelievable to some until they do a little research and try to understand it. It's science so anyone can evaluate the ideas, study the evidence, and recreate the research on their own as well.
Dave
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Feb 17, 2012 - 05:45pm PT
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The whole idea of things emerging from totally different things is a very fascinating study, and so conuterintuitive at some stages that the whole notion that previous stages in a causal chain "create" something down river might be totally wrong. How matter "creates" mind, how inorganic matter "creates" life, and so forth are largely open questions, often thieved past by ignoring qualitative differences. This is also a field of inquiry promising the moon and delivering on not so much to date.
And anyone waiting for Dr. Frankenstein to create life in a lab or to turn out a sentient computer anything "soon," stand up and be counted. I got some real estate for you - on Mars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cicada_molting_animated-2.gif
JL
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Feb 17, 2012 - 07:12pm PT
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to create life in a lab
This is why Carl Sagan was careful to distinguish between (a) microbial life and (b) "big beasts" - like cheetahs and honey badgers and humans.
Synthesis of bacteriophage has already been done in the lab. Synthesis of whole bacteria maybe as well. I haven't been following the state of the art.
In the future we will have a discipline called bioengineering - including both analytical bioengineering and applied bioengineering - which will be a great deal more prevalent in our colleges and communities and consciousnesses than it is today. And at that time, blogs or forum threads such as these will provide unbounded testimony to anyone to show how far public understanding (in biology or bioengineering) has evolved in even two generations.
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