Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Friday, April 09, 2021, 08:51 (1322 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: ... the word information is used with great emphasis in ID literature as it relates to the coded instructions in DNA.

dhw: The word is used with great emphasis by many people, and it has even been used to tell us that information is the source of life. And such statements show precisely why it is the source of much unnecessary confusion.

DAVID: Sorry for your confusion. Humans and many others receive sensory information and act by responding by using coded information following informational instructions in their DNA. Accept it.

dhw: I do not have the slightest idea how any of these forms of information could have been the source of life. Please explain. And if you want to apply your terms to “activity”, please explain what information is “coded” and what informational instructions I receive when my senses tell me the sun is shining, and so I decide to go for a walk instead of discuss information with my friend David.

DAVID: The source of life is God, but He did it by creating an amazing informational code of instructions for organism's cells to follow and cooperate in having life emerge from their actions as shown by the biochemical molecule's furious dance of reactions. So saying information is the source of life is a shorthand way of putting it.

Now we have an informational code of instructions instead of coded information following informational instructions, and whatever all of these may be, and no matter what they did, your God had to create the cells before he planted the instructions in them. It’s not shorthand, it’s sheer muddle. And totally unnecessary. If God is the source of life, he created cells and DNA and all the mechanisms necessary for them to live, reproduce and eventually evolve. And you want us to say that information did all that.

DAVID: When the sun is shining I want you to walk and stay healthy.

Thank you. Now please tell me what information is “coded” and what informational instructions I receive from my DNA when I decide to go for my walk.

EVOLUTION OF THE EYE

QUOTES: The network of nerves connecting our eyes to our brains is sophisticated and researchers have now shown that it evolved much earlier than previously thought, thanks to an unexpected source: the gar fish.
Michigan State University's Ingo Braasch has helped an international research team show that this connection scheme was already present in ancient fish at least 450 million years ago. That makes it about 100 million years older than previously believed.

"I learn something about myself when looking at these weird fish and understanding how old parts of our own bodies are. I'm excited to tell the story of eye evolution with a new twist this semester in our Comparative Anatomy class.'" [David's bold]

DAVID: ...the bold is certainly in support of pre-planning.

Neither the bold nor the article itself supports pre-planning. They simply explain how evolution progresses, as later organisms build on the innovations of their earlier predecessors.

Evolution: bacteria that don't evolve
DAVID: A type has been found, and are their own fossils:
https://phys.org/news/2021-04-fossils-microbe-evolutionary-stasis-millions.html

QUOTES: "It's like something out of science fiction. Research led by Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences has revealed that a group of microbes, which feed off chemical reactions triggered by radioactivity, have been at an evolutionary standstill for millions of years.

"Stepanauskas and his colleagues hypothesize the standstill evolution they discovered is due to the microbe's powerful protections against mutation, which have essentially locked their genetic code. " [David’s bold]

DAVID: ...not every twig of the bush of life is driven to adapt. Perhaps mutation is not blocked, just not necessary. Perhaps not required by God. [dhw’s bold]

You have finally understood the nature of stasis. Nothing changes until change becomes necessary.