Genome complexity: what genes do and don't do (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, January 29, 2019, 13:55 (1915 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Davies is coming to agree with my ID folks who believe life runs on information. In my mind I break this up into procedural information which runs most of life's activities automatically and reaction information which instructs appropriate reactions to new stimuli. I believe the cells are instructed to use the information and instructions appropriately.

dhw: You have agreed that information (a passive data base) cannot possibly serve as instructions, and you cannot passively "be instructed" without instructions. You have said unequivocally that “the information just lying there is inactive, of course, but the cells are totally aware of it and use it in various required actions.” I would say, then, that life "runs on" cells being aware of and actively using the passive information that is lying there inactive. All your own words.

[To this I would add that I do not accept the term "reaction information". Information is passive, and new stimuli provide new information. Cells, as you say, become aware of it and use it. I don't believe passive information can actively instruct passive information to become active. But see later for my "caveat".]

I don’t know what this has to do with ID. An atheist can believe in exactly the same process.

DAVID: All of my thoughts come from an acceptance that life is the result of design.

It is not an acceptance, it is a belief.

DAVID: Life emerges from all of the biochemical processes that are running in unison and in complete cooperation.

Yes.

DAVID: The genome is coded information and instructions.

And yet you have agreed that DNA cannot possibly serve as instructions.

DAVID: Of course the atheist can accept this only he would say it all appeared naturally.

So Davies is apparently coming to terms with your ID folks and all those atheists and agnostics who believe life “runs on information”.

DAVID: What are your thoughts about this issue of information in this context of what makes life operate?

My thoughts favour the hypothesis described above, using your very own words: “life "runs on" cells being aware of and actively using the passive information that is lying there inactive.” To complete the picture, I must add that for me there is a 50/50 chance that the active awareness and ability (or intelligence) of cells to use the information may have been designed by your God.

Under “Magic embryology”:

QUOTE: "After the fertilisation of an egg cell, two become one; two sets of genetic information combine to form a genome. We can think of the egg and sperm as information capsules with stored instructions for starting a new life, but post fertilisation, what kick starts the interpretation of these instructions? (David’s bold)

We are getting into special territory here. See below for my “caveat”.

QUOTE: “The model proposed by the research connects genome activation with epigenetic reprogramming of the cells that eventually form the sperm and eggs, forming a connected chain of events that secures Dppa2 and 4 expression in egg cells ready to initiate genome activation when the time is right.” (David’s bold)

Of course it’s a connected chain of events. That doesn’t mean that cells obey instructions issued 3.8 billion years ago; the article you agreed with said that cells “learn” and “create instructions on the hoof” and create them “de novo”. (But again, see below for my “caveat”.)

DAVID: It is all set to start making a fetus as these proteins act automatically as noted by the bolds above. Information and instructions ready to go.

Information yes, but according to the article you agreed with, the instructions are issued by the cells, which actively use the passive information. However, in the context of heredity and evolution, I need to repeat the caveat I have always offered in response to your posts highlighting automaticity and ignoring origins and problems. Every innovation does require “de novo” instructions from the cells, but once any process has proved successful, I agree that the cells will then follow “stored instructions”, as the successful process has to be passed on. And the cells will go on performing that process automatically unless problems or new conditions arise. It is the solution of new problems that provides us with the evidence that cells (including bacteria) are aware of passive information and, in your own words, “use it in various required actions”. That is when they create instructions on the hoof/de novo. And that is the basis of my hypothesis: we know cells can solve new problems and can restructure themselves in response to environmental change, and although we don’t know the extent to which they can do this, I suggest that by the same process they can also invent the new structures that constitute evolution.