80 thoughts on “Keiths and Joe can learn something.”

  1. Physicists have just discovered something that biologists have known for a long time. And somehow that changes everything?

    This doesn’t even make sense. Maybe the reporter should have asked the biologists before publishing.

  3. phoodoo:

    Remember when I said that you can’t have genes switching on and off without a code, and how the sequence of DNA wasn’t the only code Keiths?

    I remember your being extremely confused about cell differentiation, and I’m guessing that hasn’t changed:

    Furthermore how can a lung cell have the same code as a liver cell, if they are not the same?

    Given the title of the thread, you seem to think that your linked article contradicts something that Joe and I have said. What is that, specifically? Quotes and links, please.

  4. Well, that went as predicted. I hope he read the whole thing this time.

  5. Its pretty simple really keith. You can try to deny it all you want, but I was wright and you were flailing:

    keiths:

    Do you understand the difference between Morse code and a message expressed in Morse code?

    and

    ME

    You still haven’t answered how an epigentic system can work without having a code telling it what to do (your cop out to a cut and paste which answers nothing regarding the question notwithstanding.)

    In other words keiths, you were trying to claim that the epigentics decisions being made were simply the message, where as the DNA sequence was the code. DNA sequence is one part of the code, the folds in the DNA is another part of the code keiths. DNA IS NOT the code and epigentics is the result of the code (which was an asinine suggestion on your part).

  6. Pretty crap pop-sci article in any case. Too much dumbing down and then there’s problems with incorrect usage of terminology like the confusing of genetic sequence with genetic code.

    No wonder people like phoodoo are so confused.

  8. Neil Rickert:
    Physicists have just discovered something that biologists have known for a long time.And somehow that changes everything?

    This doesn’t even make sense.Maybe the reporter should have asked the biologists before publishing.

    I wonder why if the biologists have known this for years, why keiths didn’t know it, and why you were certainly mum whilst others were trying to say that the epigenetics that determine what a cell will become was simply the result of the message.

    Claiming you knew all along, now that I have shown the incorrectness of his anaology is sort of your attempt at a humble brag ex post facto?

  9. Rumraket:
    Pretty crap pop-sci article in any case. Too much dumbing down and then there’s problems with incorrect usage of terminology like the confusing of genetic sequence with genetic code.

    No wonder people like phoodoo are so confused.

    Empty hand wave. You guys are famous for that.

  10. There is no code related to gene expression(whether it results in epigenetic inheritance or not). The article is incorrectly using terminology. Gene expression is due to TFs “recognizing” some particular sequences of DNA because of their structure, that’s it.

  11. phoodoo: Empty hand wave.You guys are famous for that.

    The genetic code is the codon triplets of mRNA translated by aminoacylated tRNA and the ribosome.

    This is unrelated to initiation of gene expression, they are two separate things. The article is using the word “genetic code” when it should be using “genetic sequence”.

  12. None of this is a problem at all for the ID folks obviously, who never had the problem of explaining how a DNA code came to be through undirected means, but it is even more tough for the accidents is everything crowd, because now you have to come up with ANOTHER accidents that make the genetic folds code story.

    The more accidents that turn out useful that you have to account for, the harder and more absurd it gets for you guys.

    Of course your hand waving skills are as sharp as ever.

  14. Oh ok you win phoodoo. Its all codes and evolution is accidents. You wrote it, that settles it.

  15. Rumraket:
    Oh ok you win phoodoo. Its all codes and evolution is accidents. You wrote it, that settles it.

    Believe me, I feel bad that this is the storyline your side has to work with.

    But, I guess in a Godless world, what else do you have? Accidents happen.

    Or maybe its all a simulation.

  16. phoodoo: ID folks obviously, who never had the problem of explaining how a DNA code came to be through undirected means

    While “it was designed” may satisfy someone with your level of intellectual curiosity that does not work for everyone.

    phoodoo: Empty hand wave. You guys are famous for that.

    I await the ID explanation for how DNA came to be and I expect no handwaving!

  17. Rumraket:

    Pretty crap pop-sci article in any case. Too much dumbing down and then there’s problems with incorrect usage of terminology like the confusing of genetic sequence with genetic code.

    No wonder people like phoodoo are so confused.

    That’s not the issue. Phoodoo gets confused even by well-written articles — when he actually reads them, that is.

  18. phoodoo:

    In other words keiths, you were trying to claim that the epigentics decisions being made were simply the message, where as the DNA sequence was the code.

    No, phoodoo.

    Joe, TristanM and I were all trying to teach you the difference between the genetic code itself and sequences expressed in that code. Amazingly, you still don’t get it.

    Here’s how it went:

    Joe:

    In the video it is said that each of the cells has “a different genetic code”.

    Hmm.I though that all of them, in their nuclei, use the same genetic code, the Universal code.

    It seems that the writer of the video does not know what a “genetic code” is.

    phoodoo:

    Are you disputing the narrators comments that each neuron cell in the brain has around 1000 mutations that are not the same as the cells next to it?

    Furthermore how can a lung cell have the same code as a liver cell, if they are not the same?

    Maybe its you who doesn’t know what a code means?

    TristanM:

    The genetic code they use is the same. The sequences of DNA they have are different. See the difference?

    phoodoo:

    The sequence of DNA is not a genetic code? Huh?

    keiths:

    Do you understand the difference between Morse code and a message expressed in Morse code?

    phoodoo:

    Yes.

    keiths:

    Do you understand the difference between the genetic code and a genotype expressed in that code?

    phoodoo:

    How can the exact same code, written by the exact same machine, and interpreted by the exact same machine, give different results for the exact same code? Is it the code that is different or the machine that is different?

    keiths:

    First things first, phoodoo.

    Let’s clear up your confusion over the difference between genotypes and the genetic code.

    Different messages can be expressed using the same Morse code, just as different genotypes can be expressed using the same genetic code.

    Are those distinctions clear to you?

    To no avail. Phoodoo was already off on his “but liver cells and lung cells are different!” tangent.

    Like trying to teach a brick, but with less probability of success.

  19. phoodoo:

    Its all just codes.

    Layers upon layers, none of which you have any explanation for as to how or why.

    So in your world every mountainside must be a code, just waiting to tell the next rock to roll down it the precise parameters of each bounce. Such design! Such planning! Or do rocks and biochemistry use different laws of physics? To borrow a phrase from someone whose name I have forgotten: Language isn’t your first language, is it?

    Demon-haunted world indeed.

  21. keiths,

    keiths,

    Are you now accepting that epigentics also needs a code, so we have two codes at work here? The sequence of the DNA as well as the folds of the DNA?

  22. phoodoo,

    keiths,

    Are you now accepting that epigentics also needs a code, so we have two codes at work here? The sequence of the DNA as well as the folds of the DNA?

    I’m still trying to get you to understand the difference between the genetic code and a DNA sequence.

    A forlorn hope, it seems.

  24. phoodoo:
    keiths,

    keiths,

    Are you now accepting that epigentics also needs a code, so we have two codes at work here? The sequence of the DNA as well as the folds of the DNA?

    The sequence of DNA is not a code, neither is the folding or winding of DNA strings. There is only one code, the genetic code of protein translation, that exists as a consequence of aminoacylation of tRNA. That’s the only code in genetics.

  25. Here’s another article which explores new scientific perspectives on biology; in this case, it is the perspective of yoga science. A teaser:

    You feel lighter already, don’t you? What you’re experiencing is the negative pull of gravity, harnessed and refocussed. There are studies that show that people who stretch live a full decade longer. It’s really that simple, that easy. If you just do this every day, your whole body will rejuvenate. Yes, hold that right there, and silently dedicate today’s practice to the wonder that is biology.

  27. walto:
    Did Murray write that?

    I’m afraid I am in lost in the translation of your comment. Do you mean Bill Murray, the comedian/actor?

  29. keiths:
    He means William J. “Mind Powers” Murray.

    Murray does yoga? [insert joke about stretching here]

  33. walto,

    IIRC he’s big on it being spelled “yogHurt.”

    You may be thinking of Alan, who uses the British spelling. WJM uses the American spelling, without the ‘h’.

  35. walto:

    Check your link.

    Um, I did.

    In that comment, WJM spells it as ‘yogurt’ and Alan spells it as ‘yoghurt’.

  37. So, even if neither keiths nor joe nor phoodoo has learned anything from this thread–*I* have!!

    I did sooo like the idea of Murray insisting on ‘yoghurt’ though. :>{

  38. I have learned something from this thread: that some people will call almost anything a “code” while maintaining that the existence of the code is prima facie evidence of Intelligent Design.

  39. Joe Felsenstein:
    I have learned something from this thread: that some people will call almost anything a “code” while maintaining that the existence of the code is prima facie evidence of Intelligent Design.

    You’d almost think that human intelligence evolved to be what you’d expect–less than perfect at choosing truth over utility.

    Glen Davidson

  40. Rumraket: The sequence of DNA is not a code, neither is the folding or winding of DNA strings.

    Do you understand the meaning of code?

    I think you are fundamentally and totally incorrect.

  43. phoodoo: Do you understand the meaning of code?

    I think you are fundamentally and totally incorrect.

    For what it’s worth, my idea of a code is a symbolic, essentially arbitrary set of “atoms” which can be combined in a useful way, at a high level of abstraction. So for example, written directions for how to drive a nail with a hammer would be a code, leaving it up to me to decode the directions to drive the nail. Actually driving the nail, though, isn’t code in any way. There is nothing abstract, arbitrary or symbolic about it.

    I understand DNA to be the biological equivalent of the hammer, NOT the directions for using the hammer.

  45. phoodoo:
    Flint,

    Then what do you call computer code?Its not symbolic.

    Is it not? Then tell me, why can I write code in multiple languages and yet it all still runs on the same underlying architecture?

  46. phoodoo: None of this is a problem at all for the ID folks obviously, who never had the problem of explaining how a DNA code came to be through undirected means

    If it’s never been a problem for the ID folks to explain how ‘DNA code’ came to be through designed means home come they’ve never given that explanation?

    Can you give it phoodoo? If you can’t will you take back your claim? That would be the honorable thing to do.

    Otherwise I look forwards to the ID explanation of DNA, no hand waving included!

  47. phoodoo: Do you understand the meaning of code?

    You meant to ask me if I understand the concept of a code, and what qualifies as that concept, right?
    If so, yes! Do you?

    phoodoo: I think you are fundamentally and totally incorrect.

    I think you are fundamentally and totally incorrect. And I think you have an irrational obsession with labels, as if us calling something a “code” says anything about how it came to exist.

  48. Flint,

    For what it’s worth, my idea of a code is a symbolic, essentially arbitrary set of “atoms” which can be combined in a useful way…

    It’s not really a set of “atoms”, because distinct codes can use the same set of atoms. One set of atoms, multiple codes.

    Better to think of a code as a set of rules for transforming sequences of input “atoms” into sequences of output atoms.

    …at a high level of abstraction.

    A high level of abstraction isn’t necessary. Some codes are quite simple and low-level.

    So for example, written directions for how to drive a nail with a hammer would be a code, leaving it up to me to decode the directions to drive the nail.

    Here I think you’re making the same mistake as phoodoo. The directions might be interpreted using a code, but they don’t constitute a code. Likewise, a particular DNA sequence can be interpreted using the genetic code, but it doesn’t constitute the genetic code.

    (And just to further confuse you, phoodoo, the word “code” has more than one meaning. When we write a bunch of computer instructions, we don’t say that we’re writing a code, but we do say that we’re writing code.

    The second meaning doesn’t apply to Flint’s example, though, because he is talking about “a code”. )

  49. phoodoo,

    Then what do you call computer code? Its not symbolic.

    Not symbolic? Have you ever written a computer program, phoodoo?

  50. phoodoo:
    Flint,

    Then what do you call computer code?Its not symbolic.

    Um. Do you write your computer code in something other than symbols?

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