The Nirenberg and Matthaei experiment was a scientific experiment performed on May 15, 1961, by Marshall W. Nirenberg and his post doctoral fellow, Heinrich J. Matthaei. The experiment cracked the genetic code by using nucleic acid homopolymers to translate specific amino acids.
The Nirenberg and Leder experiment was a scientific experiment performed in 1964 by Marshall W. Nirenberg and Philip Leder. The experiment elucidated the triplet nature of the genetic code and allowed the remaining ambiguous codons in the genetic code to be deciphered.
The Marshall W. Nirenberg Papers Public Reactions to the Genetic Code, 1961-1968
Nevertheless, the problem of the genetic code at least in the restricted one-dimensional sense (the linear correlation of the nucleotide sequence of polynucleotides with that of the amino acid sequence of polypeptides) would appear to have been solved.
In the years after 1953, scientists scrambled to be the first to decipher the genetic code. In an attempt to make the race interesting, theoretical physicist and astronomer George Gamow came up with a plan. He organized an exclusive club, the “RNA Tie Club,” in which each member would put forward ideas as to how the nucleotide bases were translated into proteins in the body’s cells. His club had twenty hand-picked members, one for each amino acid, and each wore a tie marked with the symbol of that amino acid. The group—which did not include Marshall Nirenberg—met several times during the 1950s but did not manage to be the first to break the code.
Genetic memory resides in specific molecules of nucleic acid. The information is encoded in the form of a linear sequence of bases of 4 varieties that corresponds to sequences of 20 varieties of amino acids in protein. The translation from nucleic acid to protein proceeds in a sequential fashion according to a systematic code with relatively simple rules. Each unit of nucleic acid defines the species of molecule to be selected, its position relative to the previous molecule selected, and the time of the event relative to the previous event. The nucleic acid therefore functions both as a template for other molecules and as a biological clock. The information is encoded and decoded in the form of a one-dimensional string. The polypeptide translation product then folds upon itself in a specific manner predetermined by the amino acid sequence, forming a complex, three-dimensional protein.
Scads of scientists. Two Nobel Prizes. Isn’t consensus science grand?
“…the fact is that present life requires semiotic control by coded gene strings.”
– Howard H. Pattee
I think this is a revealing comment. For me ID is sort of an Turing test for the universe. Just like with a regular Turing test if the universe can convince us it is intelligent it passes the test.
When the critic sees the universe display a behavior that we would normally associate with intelligence he can always invoke a “Chinese room” style objection.
these discussions will always boil down to the problem of other minds
peace
I think the “arbitrary” claim is legit. It would clearly be possible to have a code that matched codon to amino acid differently, just as it would be possible to have an alphabet that matched A to the Guh sound and B to the Eeee sound etc.
In the case of the mRNA-amino acid code, to do this you would have to have a different set of tRNA. In the case of a human alphabet, you would need to change the mappings in your brain (or get a computer to do it for you).
So the arbitrariness is indeed equivalent in the two systems. In the case of human alphabets it’s agreed amongst a community of alphabet users, and can be changed at will. In the case of tRNA it’s physically built into the DNA. so you’d have to change the DNA molecule to get a different mapping.
Which you could still argue is simply a much more direct system. However, it means that you can’t infer anything about intelligence from the presence of an arbitrary mapping per se. One arises from a DNA sequence; the other is agreed between intelligent symbol users.
Yes, I think so. I would also argue that the universe does indeed display intelligent behaviour.
And if all IDists are arguing is that the universe is an intelligent system, I’d be inclined to agree (depending in whether “intelligence” was defined to including intentional behaviour).
I don’t think the universe intentionally brought about intelligent life. I do think that it intelligently brought forth intentional life.
That parody may be correct, but as I said, I don’t think the key argument s/he’s relying on depends on representation at all.
The argument I am trying to reconstruct here is akin to denials of reduceability claims, say, of mental to physical processes or biology to physics. (I think it’s an interesting claim, but as I am silly and need a dictionary according to Frankie, you can take it for what it’s worth.)
It’s something like this, I think.
(1) All activities governed by laws discoverable by scientific means exhibit a particular sort of predictability. (premise)
(2) Genetic activity (if that’s the word) does not exhibit the appropriate sort of behavior to be governed by laws discoverable by science. (premise)
(3) Therefore, genetic activity is not governed by laws discoverable by science. (from 1 and 2)
(4) The only other activities with which we are familiar that do not exhibit that sort of predictability are intentional. (premise)
(5) Therefore, it is reasonable to surmise that genetic activity is also intentional. (from 3, 4 and some presumably appropriate epistemic principle).
As indicated, I’m not competent to assess the premises here, but it seems to me not a completely cuckoo argument. And if it’s question-begging (as it may well be), I’m not capable making that case myself.
A universe having physics that allow emergence will allow evolution. The interesting questions revolve around how.
I agree that the issue of intention is key. If the I in ID stood for Intention, the discussion would be more interesting.
But it explicitly isn’t. Dembski thinks that intention is outwith the domain of science. I don’t.
Frankie,
Joeberish.
Do you mean intention in the sense of purpose, or do you mean the philosophers usage of “intentionality” in the sense of the aboutness of mental states.
I agree that one way to view the argument here is to assume the genetic code (not its implementation in cell biochemistry!) has (derived) philosopher’s intentionality, and then to argue that that intentionality must have originated in a designer who intended (ordinary usage) it to be there.
I’m wondering if any of the scientists here (biological or otherwise) would care to comment specifically on the claims made in premises (1) and (2) here. As the argument (at least to 3) is clearly valid, the claims made by those premises are important.
Thanks.
I was using “intention” in the philosopher’s sense, but I could have used a more commonsensical word. Basically the same argument could be put substituting “exhibiting intelligence” or “require some sort of cogitation” for “are intentional.”
One point is that this sort of argument does not depend on representation, but on a certain type of arbitrariness as a sign of design. I’ve no doubt that it’s popped up for years in ID circles, but I have to admit that I’ve never either seen it or heard of it or thought of it myself before. (I’m not really “up” on this stuff.)
Maybe it has to be added as a number 5 on your list of basic design arguments?
I still think one way to view the argument is whether we can naturalize intentionality (philosopher’s sense of the word).
I know you’ve generalized this to mental to physical or biological to physical, but I think that is too vague to be useful here.
For mental reduction, there are specific issues, often these three: intentionality, causation, and (drum-roll) qualia.
For biology to physics I’m not aware of any issues where it is claimed that biology violates physics, although of course that is a different issue from saying biology can be reduced to physics. I don’t think it can, but I don’t think that issue is related to the discussion in this thread.
Rather the issue in biology in this thread is to provide a mechanism to explain how the purported code could have arisen without a designer.
For cell biochemistry, there is a scientific program trying to do this. The ID arguments I’ve seen here are all of the form “It has not succeeded yet, and I don’t believe it ever will”. God-of-the-gaps arguments.
For mental representation, well, that is the topic for another thread. Which KN just posted another take on.
And, yes, I did get a sense of deja vu in posting the above.
Mung,
Protein folding and active sites aren’t algorithmic, they are thermodynamic. A system will shed free energy if it can, and adopt a lower energy configuration. Folded proteins are at a lower energy state than unfolded ones.
That applies to both protein folding and the interaction of enzyme with substrate(s)/cofactor(s) – active site(s).
I actually think that the denial of such a reduction is key here. It would follow from the claims that (i) to follow physical laws, behaviors must exhibit a certain sort of predictability, and (ii) biological processes don’t exhibit the appropriate predictability. Frankie’s argument centers on arbitrariness. I’d like to focus on the truth and relevance of that claim.
Right, I figured that is how you would use “intentionality”, but I was wondering about Elizabeth..
IANAS, but I find your premise (2) (and hence (4)) to be too vague to assess. As you point out in your original note, it seems that on many interpretations it would just beg the question.
BruceS,
In what way is premise (2) vague, do you think?
Sciency gibberish.
But very safe for Mung. Never gonna happen.
Shrug. Given you tell me what I am really thinking, you can’t realistically object when someone else gives you a position you don’t hold.
So do you or don’t you think DNA was designed? You do, so what part of my statement is false?
Number one borders on circularity, since scientific laws are codified or formula-ized predictions.
Number two doesn’t seem to mean anything. Or if it does mean anything, it isn’t clear.
This all looks like map to territory reasoning.
I did say “physics” and not “physical” as I was not sure what “physical” meant in your post.
I meant that biological natural laws and biological explanations could not be reduced to laws and explanations in physics. I did not mean that biological science does not aim at modelling predictable behavior, as expressed by biological explanations.
As per my other post, I think (ETA:) “appropriate”
“arbitrariness”is vague. Do you mean random?But that statement of Mung’s seems to undercut ID totally. If there are no such algorithms, then the designer must have used cut’n’try. Just like evolution.
So, keep talking Mung. The little you do say works against ID.
What does “appropriate” mean. (You’ve also used “predictable”.)
Does it mean random? Coin flips and quantum events are unpredictable in that sense.
Does it mean we need “other things being equal” type conditions? One could say these are needed in any science to some extent.
Of if we focus on psychology/neuroscience, that perhaps it could mean Folk Psychology is not really science. OK, I can buy that. But I don’t think that is very important.
We’re cross-posting so I am going to take a break and let the dust settle.
walto,
The ‘arbitrary’ claim seems to relate to the fact that it could have been different. It is not a ‘law of chemistry’ that a particular anticodon-bearing tRNA gets a particular amino acid stuck on its ACC stem. Some other combination could have occurred instead, or none. But following that kind of logic, one is soon left to conclude that absolutely nothing can happen without active guidance, since many, many things in organisms could have been different. And are.
But then, no enzyme action is compelled by a ‘law of chemistry’. It follows such laws – energy moves in a direction guided by competition between atoms for electrons, and systems shed energy if they can in rearranging their electrons under this force. But the particular enzymes one sees are not ‘law-given’. There is no chemical law that says there must be a lactate dehydrogenase for example. It’s like saying that hair is arbitrary, because there is no chemical law that says it must occur.
And likewise there is no chemical law that says that guanyl-tRNA synthetase must have as substrate either guanine or the set of tRNAs that have guanine anticodons (‘guanine anticodons’ are only guanine anticodons because this enzyme exists).
But saying (as that Masked Stranger Frankie does) ‘there is no physicochemical connection between the DNA codon and the amino acid’, as if such a thing only occurs if the one turns into the other, is just plain wrong. Take a class. It’s both physical and chemical. tRNA is like a stick. Put an amino acid on one end of the stick, there is a ‘physicochemical connection’ between the acid and any other part of the stick, and then with any appropriately-shaped hole that one might subsequently jab the stick into.
O.k. so this is about what you ‘believe’ is ‘true’ according to your experience.
To clarify, are you suggesting ‘code’ = ‘intelligently designed’? Iow, NO ‘codes’ are not ‘intelligently designed’? Going further, because there are ‘codes’, we must accept at least some kind of ‘intelligent design’ and thus adopt (at least some version of) the Discovery Institute’s uppercase ‘Intelligent Design’ THEORY?
If so, your position seems to be that once one identifies codes, they become an IDist ‘by definition.’ Is that what you’re suggesting?
In Mung’s IDist worldview (not strictly science) paradigm, this seems to equate with atheist code identifiers simply being denialists.
It’s not, I don’t think.
I just used “appropriate” so I wouldn’t have to type out “the sort of predictability referred to in (i)” on my Blackberry. It has to be the same term or the inference would not be valid.
It may well be that what the supporter of (2) is saying here is tantamount to an assertion of the randomness of the behaviors in question. Again, I’m not an expert, but it’s plausible to me that the “abitrariness” claim is a randomness claim.
No.
I have no idea what you’re getting at here.
Allan Miller,
OK, bad example, since there is the possibility of selection. I would not invoke selection as a necessary mechanism to explain why a given tRNA assignment occurs as opposed to another.
Thanks for this, Allan. It’s helpful and right on point. However, it’s a shame that Frankie is too intent on insulting everybody who disagrees with him/her to address it patiently. Because I’m not actually sure that no responses ARE available. That is, I can’t tell if the same sort of alleged “lawlessness” you concede here is common not only to biological processes but also to (more strictly–i.e., non-biologica) chemical and physical processes as well. If so, you may be missing part of what is being claimed by this design-pushing argument, which, I take it is supposed to apply to DNA activity but not to atomic activity and to Stonehenge but not the stones constituting Stonehenge. As your comment about hair seems to me to apply to all, I’m not sure it fully takes in their claim.
Again, I’m too ignorant to try to put any sort of Design case based on arbitrariness here–I’m also not particularly sympathetic or wildly interested. I just think there may be a not absurd argument, which you and Lizzie obviously grok more clearly than I do. I can’t put it very well myself, but it would be interesting to hear something other than slurs from someone who actually could. Dunno if there’s such a person posting here or not.
“Randomness” seems to me to be pointless to appeal to for a similar reason that it is pointless in arguments on free will. I don’t seen how it buys what the ID proponents wants.
Plus, as I mentioned, every science uses randomness. It may just stand for “error/noise from an unknown source”, eg as in medical experiments, coin flips, or the complex statistical analysis underlying the claim for the discovery of the Higgs Boson. That is epistemic randomness, I would say. Or, for QM, it may be that there is irreducible randomness (metaphysical) in our universe (our branch of the multiverse for MWI fans). In either event, that cannot be a reason to suggest something special about biology or mentality.
For FP, I just meant that some philosophers (hint: last name starts with C) would claim it is not a science-like theory. So that would mean its predictions are not appropriate if taken to be scientific predictions.
On the shortening for premise 2 from premise 1: Right, I forgot Phil 101 (honest admission, not sarcasm).
Well, precisely. But maybe not in the way you think.
One way to read the ID argument is that there IS a map, namely the genetic code, and it is separate from the territory, namely the implementation in DNA transcription.
It’s a map because it leaves our the details to focus on something important to the map creator/reader.
But maps are a form of intentionality and require (according to ID proponents) an purposeful agent to convey that intentionality/create the map.
Not a law in biochemistry but perhaps a law based on selection from sources of varying fitness is one way to try to explain why this particle coding was used.
And perhaps there is a role for a counterpart of genetic drift, that is, some choice was made randomly in early life and it stuck.
ETA: Then the ID proponent could argue that evolution does not work to explain the origins of the genetic code. But that would just be a rehash of standard arguments from ID against evolution, eg the code is irreducibly complex or the code has a function/purpose and therefore there was a designer with that function/purpose in mind.
walto,
There is, I suppose, something of a conceptual onion regarding ‘law-like’ behaviour, which ultimately is down to the scale variance of physics. The four fundamental physical forces each have a limited range of distance, but each operates on a different scale. The strong force operates within the atom, and falls off rapidly outside it, but is in part responsible for the tightly ‘law-like’ properties of the periodic table. Add in the electrostatic force, which operates a bit more widely, and you get the other part of the elemental and molecular properties. The positive charges in the nucleus attract the electrons, but different sized nuclei have different affinities, and so the trade in electrons tends towards the formation and breaking of bonds – molecules, reactions.
When people talk of laws of chemistry, they think in naive terms of sticking these reagents together and always getting that result. But the scale on which enzymes operate is wider still. They are large, flexible chains, with a vast array of potential catalytic capability – or rather, about 7 basic reactions, but a massive array of substrate-specificities on which to perform them.
Going further out still, we move to the level of the cell and then the organism, the population, environment etc. Chemistry, in the ‘law-like’ sense obviously loses its grip at the scale at which electrostatic interaction become insensible. But the consequences of those low-level interactions ripple out. At higher levels, with replication, selection/drift becomes a force, and is unavoidably stochastic. Things are no longer regularly predictable, although (as with casino profits) there are still regularities. It’s not so much ‘lawlessness’ as a different kind of law.
So I think part of the problem is an unawareness of the appropriate levels of interaction for the explanation being sought. It’s a bit like James Tour’s demand for a chemical explanation of macroevolution. A Nobel prize-winner, yet!
So, there is no necessary association between an amino acid and its codon derived from chemistry. But if you find a feature in organisms, and wonder why it occurs, chemistry is not the first thing that springs to mind. There is a combination of contingency and selection to think about, and these sift the lower-level, more regular behaviour in a stochastic manner.
If the first ever tRNA happened to have alanine stuck on it, this is arbitrary but hardly demands Design simply because it could have been guanine. What matters is the effect of the ‘arbitrary’ association on subsequent survival/reproduction.
Right, I see you had my concern regarding selection playing a role in mind all along.
And your point about reducing macroevolution to chemistry is the same one I was making about the reducibility of biology to physics.
BruceS,
Not necessarily drift, but contingency certainly. There are two kinds of selection to consider: that between two possible associations, and that between having an association and having none. I doubt that one codon-amino acid linkage is fundamentally preferable to another, selectively speaking. And they both have to actually occur in competing subpopulations for it to be evolutionarily relevant.
But there is co-evolution. If you have a prior state with no tRNA charging, the first association is up for grabs, and can be completely arbitrary. It’s not necessarily drift – it could be selection between organisms doing that association and those not doing anything. But a second association is constrained by the presence of the first, and so on. Gradually, as more proteins start to be made by a wider repertoire, further subdivision is constrained.
Point being, the layout of the codon matrix taken as a whole is clearly not ‘arbitrary’ – it is not fully randomised. But this is as likely due to constraint as optimisation. Subdivision of a codon group demands an acid that is not wildly different from the original in its chemical propertes, if that substitution is not to catastrophically disrupt existing proteins. This leads to clustering of property.
If one thinks what one would have to do to selectively tune the matrix instead, and move them around like the tiles in a Christmas cracker puzzle, I’d say it’s probably a non-starter.
I’m a Calvinist I believe absolutely everything is designed. In my worldview there is no such thing as random
There is a world of difference between believing “X is designed” and claiming X must be the result of design.
Intention is an even more slippery concept than consciousness.
A single event can have multiple intending agents with multiple even contradictory intentions at the same time.
Quote:
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
(Gen 50:20)
end quote:
peace
The juxtaposition of
and
is hilarious.
Again, thanks. I’m wondering if you can make your “could have been” statements a bit more clear, though. You say, e.g., that, if we suppose “the first ever tRNA happened to have alanine stuck on it” we ought to concede that it “could have been guanine” instead. But that could mean several things, including that even with every antecedent condition and physical law being the same as those that produced the alanine involvement, we might have had guanine involvement instead. That’s a surprising claim to me, much more so than that the antecedent conditions and/or physical laws might have been sufficiently different to produce the guanine involvement.
I mean, we could also say that protons might not have been attractive to electrons, and that is so–but not if we hold all the physical laws constant. But, presumably, we might have had different physical laws. So if you could explain the contingency in the DNA example and if/how it differs from contingency in a purely physical example, that would be helpful.
OMagain,
quote:
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.
(Pro 16:33)
end quote:
I would never claim that the definition of “lot casting” included “produced by a intelligent designer” despite the fact that I believe that every result is “designed”.
Can you understand that?
peace
Thanks for expressing this so clearly.
Dunno about slippery. Both are important.
Yes, one could make (and lots of people have made) that argument, but it’s nothing at all like the one I’ve been trying to put together for Frankie. Which doesn’t depend on representation or maps AT ALL.
Well, that’s the question. Premise 2 asserts that it does. You claim it doesn’t. I’m interested in hearing the arguments.
The free will issue is a red herring here, I think. It would be better if you would focus a bit more closely on precisely what THIS argument says and not try to bring in everything you’ve ever read on any topic that seems to you possibly connected. FWIW, those connections don’t always seem to me quite on point.
I don’t mean the second thing, because I’ve never understood what it is supposed to mean. I mean in the sense of purpose.
Specifically, in the sense an agent that selects one set of actions rather than another, because the first is more likely to bring about some beneficial state than another.
And I use the word “beneficial” in the specific sense of “a state in which the “intending agent” is more likely to be able to carry on intending stuff (or, conceivably, its proxies).
As I said above, either the philosophical or non-philosophical uses here would have been ok. So would use of intelligence, design, mentality or cogitation. Doesn’t really affect anything. The argument (good or bad) is basically the same.
I can understand that religion seems to remove the ability to think logically in some people, yes.
Not ‘the,’ but ‘some’. Not all philosophers use it that way. Let’s not be dragged down by Dennett or one of his foolish followers. Or perhaps you ‘intend’ to be so dragged down?
Lizzie ‘intentionally’ was married in a Church where she was not ‘wedded’ only in front of friends, but supposedly intentionally also in front of God, i.e. on purpose because of what she believed. Even if she’s forgotten her vows or has no record of them, what she ‘promised’ is not ultimately forgotten.
Thus, it’s quite confusing when she now denies that SENSE and LOCATION, instead to say such things as:
I think it would be better to say it like this
(5) Therefore, it is reasonable to “tentatively”* surmise that genetic activity is also intentional. (from 3, 4 and some presumably appropriate epistemic principle).
*unless I’m aware of a sufficiently strong “defeater” to the proposition
peace
They differ in the number of Nobel prizes awarded. 😉
Yeah, I noticed that too.
I can’t believe fithmonarchyman doesn’t notice how absurd his statements are.
Why would he think anyone would listen to him when he doesn’t even listen to himself?