And still more re "origin/nature of life"
Aug 21, 2002 In biologicalEvolution.
From correspondence between DA and Dov about aspects of origin and nature of life :
(1)
DA: Again I ask, what did the designing and organizing? Evolution has no target. Design and organization always require choice with intent at successive decision nodes. The only directionality of nature is thermodynamic decline, not ever-increasing organizational drive. We observe self-ordering processes out of chaos. But no one has ever observed spontaneous conceptual design or sophisticated integrative organization self-assemble out of randomness.
DH: Life is a clear demonstration of >ever-increasing organizational drive < , and death in all its forms is a demonstration of the >directionality of thermodynamic decline< . These phenomena are clearly all around us. You cannot deny this life phenomenon just because we do not yet understand it, in spite of the vast resources expended on studying its mechanistic aspects…
(2)
DA: Selection never occurs at the genetic level. Selection occurs after-the-fact of phenotypic function. First comes the instructions, then comes the biofunction to select. So how did the instructions get written prior to selectable function?
DH: The "instructions" are ALSO evolutionary products. The original base drive ("instruction", or "energetic spill" ) to a base molecule that thus evolved into life has been "store the energy that sustains you and evolve into ever more complex systems with ever more capacity to collect and store the collected energy, by trial-and-error ways".
(3)
DA: We keep presupposing what we want to prove without proving it. We just keep restating in different words what we want to believe. But we are not providing any detailed scientific mechanism to explain HOW the instructions got written that produced the homeostatic metabolism of life.
DH: The road to develop scientific explanation starts with scientifically reasonable/logical conjectures..
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From hborteck, comment:
Dov, you have stated this many times but never showed evidence. Your statement is from belief, not facts. One can logically come to many conclusions. But only those that are based on evidence are acceptable. Why would a tape worm become less complex? Because Natural Selection edited out those tape worms that were less competitive.
There is no direction in evolution. Only from hindsight can one see direction. If by being more complex, a tape worm would have the advantage, then tape worms would be more complex.
You have yet to show how an organism can direct its evolution.
Herb ————————————-
Dov: Herb, you write " There is no direction in evolution. Only from hindsight can one see direction". I agree. Of course. No argument re this.
And you write " You have yet to show how an organism can direct its evolution". I do not say this. In my # (2) statement I say that the natural direction is towards "with ever more capacity to collect and store…collected energy, by trial-and-error ways"; I should have used the word Modified instead of Complex.
Thank you, Herb. —————————-
Dov: About my conjecture that the origin of living organisms on Earth is pre-celled primary archaic Gene(s) prior to Cell(s), Herb wrote : "Dov, you have stated this many times but never showed evidence. Your statement is from belief, not facts. One can logically come to many conclusions. But only those that are based on evidence are acceptable".
Dov: my response:
(1)Herb, my statement has nothing to do with belief. It is from reason/logic.
(2)There are facts that cannot be evidenced. Organic pre-living-organism(s) came into life and existed in no-longer-existing conditions/circumstances, and/or recycled long ago in accordance with Life's fractal recycling processes…
(3)What factual direct evidence, as distinguished from reasonable/logical surmising, is there of the once existence of single cell(s) in the long ago ocean(s) or anywhere else that evolved into us? And are'nt there many scientifically acceptable theories, even if temporary, that have been developed on silicon, with less pre-proven data and more assumptions and conjectures than in our subject ? —————————————
Herb: Dov, you are obfuscating.
Your point [I think] was that life evolved, with a purpose. My point is that there is no direction for evolution. Whether or not life becomes simpler or more complex, is simply by chance, mediated by "natural selection". ————————
Dov: Herb, to clarify the apparent confusion, I meant to re-posit (ad absurd) the case for life origin by pre-celled "living, self-replicating, molecules" and the case for life's drive "instruction" to store the energy that sustains the organisms and to evolve into ever more modified systems with ever more capacity to collect energy and store it, via random trial-and-error events.
The ever more modified is an essential part, as it is for ever more energetic capacity. Without it Life would have been a single chance occurance. ————————
Herb: My apologies. I have been arguing a point that we argued years ago. I see now that I should not have assumed that you were still arguing the same point.
Cheers,
Herb