I have been having an exchange with Upright Biped here about his perception of how his “semiotic theory of Intelligent Design” has fared among sceptics. In the hope that he will be prepared to re-engage with us in addressing a few outstanding points, I post his argument, originally published at lawyer Barry Arrington’s Uncommon Descent blog
1. A representation is an arrangement of matter which evokes an effect within a system (e.g. written text, spoken words, pheromones, animal gestures, codes, sensory input, intracellular messengers, nucleotide sequences, etc, etc).
2. It is not logically possible to transfer information (the form of a thing; a measured aspect, quality, or preference) in a material universe without using a representation instantiated in matter.
3. If that is true, and it surely must be, then several other things must logically follow. If there is now an arrangement of matter which contains a representation of form as a consequence of its own material arrangement, then that arrangement must be necessarily arbitrary to the thing it represents. In other words, if one thing is to represent another thing within a system, then it must be separate from the thing it represents. And if it is separate from it, then it cannot be anything but materially arbitrary to it (i.e. they cannot be the same thing).
4. If that is true, then the presence of that representation must present a material component to the system (which is reducible to physical law), while its arrangement presents an arbitrary component to the system (which is not reducible to physical law).
5. If that is true, and again it surely must be, then there has to be something else which establishes the otherwise non-existent relationship between the representation and the effect it evokes within the system. In fact, this is the material basis of Francis Crick’s famous ‘adapter hypothesis’ in DNA, which lead to a revolution in the biological sciences. In a material universe, that something else must be a second arrangement of matter; coordinated to the first arrangement as well as to the effect it evokes.
6. It then also follows that this second arrangement must produce its unambiguous function, not from the mere presence of the representation, but from its arrangement. It is the arbitrary component of the representation which produces the function.
7. And if those observations are true, then in order to actually transfer recorded information, two discrete arrangements of matter are inherently required by the process; and both of these objects must necessarily have a quality that extends beyond their mere material make-up. The first is a representation and the second is a protocol (a systematic, operational rule instantiated in matter) and together they function as a formal system. They are the irreducible complex core which is fundamentally required in order to transfer recorded information.
8. During protein synthesis, a selected portion of DNA is first transcribed into mRNA, then matured and transported to the site of translation within the ribosome. This transcription process facilitates the input of information (the arbitrary component of the DNA sequence) into the system. The input of this arbitrary component functions to constrain the output, producing the polypeptides which demonstrate unambiguous function.
9. From a causal standpoint, the arbitrary component of DNA is transcribed to mRNA, and those mRNA are then used to order tRNA molecules within the ribosome. Each stage of this transcription process is determined by the physical forces of pair bonding. Yet, which amino acid appears at the peptide binding site is not determined by pair bonding; it is determined by the aaRS. In other words, which amino acid appears at the binding site is only evoked by the physical structure of the nucleic triplet, but is not determined by it. Instead, it is determined (in spatial and temporal isolation) by the physical structure of the aaRS. This is the point of translation; the point where the arbitrary component of the representation is allowed to evoke a response in a physically determined system – while preserving the arbitrary nature of the representation.
10. This physical event, translation by a material protocol, as well as the transcription of a material representation, is ubiquitous in the transfer of recorded information.
CONCLUSION: These two physical objects (the representation and protocol) along with the required preservation of the arbitrary component of the representation, and the production of unambiguous function from that arbitrary component, confirm that the transfer of recorded information in the genome is just like any other form of recorded information. It’s an arbitrary relationship instantiated in matter.
My personal view is that there are a couple of basic faults with UB’s argument. It appears to address origin-of-life (OOL) theories rather than than the theory of evolution (ToE) and it is a default argument; “OOL fails, therefore Intelligent Design”. I have no training in logic, so Reciprocating Bill’s comments, later taken up by keiths, have been a bit over my head. It is a shame that UB seemed to lose interest in defending his argument before we got to the meat of the biochemistry, where I have a little knowledge, now outdated, as this is where his argument really falls apart for me. I think the attempt to link semiosis to protein synthesis just fails utterly.
I invite other critics of Upright Biped’s argument to briefly summarize, paste or link their queries or objections in the hope that Upright Biped may find the time to respond.
ETA:
Elizabeth has devoted some considerable time to considering Upright Biped’s semiotic argument as previous threads, such as this one demonstrate.
Seems I’m currently enjoying moderation-free commenter status at Uncommon Descent!
I’ll lead off by reposting my rebuttal of Upright’s argument from the most recent thread:
At UD, Upright blurts out another hollow declaration of victory.
What’s interesting is that he also presents a summary of his argument that is surprisingly short and clear, by Upright Biped standards:
He is still afraid of making an outright claim of design, but the implication is clear. He thinks:
In reality, evolution can begin as soon as there is heritable variation with differential reproductive success. Molecules that self-replicate with imperfect fidelity fit the bill.
Upright is not foolish enough to claim that self-replicating molecules are irreducibly complex, as far as I know. His only out, then, is to claim that self-replicating molecules can’t evolve because they don’t “transfer recorded information.”
That is absurd for two reasons.
First, it’s irrelevant whether Upright thinks that self-replicating molecules “transfer recorded information.” All that matters is that they satisfy the prerequisites of evolution: replication with heritable variation and differential reproductive success.
Second, it’s silly to claim that self-replicating molecules cannot transfer recorded information, as I explained in an earlier comment:
UB’s “theory” as set out above remains silent on the cause of the phenomena it purports to explain.
Biped, given that you say, regarding your semiotic theory, that “the conclusion is only that some mechanism is required that can create a semiotic state,” what class of mechanism (your word) does semiotic theory assert is required to create (result in, cause) the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state, and what class of mechanism does semiotic theory assert cannot create (result in, cause) the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state?
That is, tell us how semiotic theory itself constrains the answer to this question. If, for example, you assert that agency is required to cause, result in, or give rise to the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state, tell us why that flows from semiotic theory as you articulate it.
If “the conclusion is only that some mechanism is required that can create a semiotic state,” yet semiotic theory is silent on causal mechanisms, neither providing or constraining hypotheses regarding causal mechanism, what good is it?
After all, we already know that the cause of a a given phenomenon must be capable of causing that phenomenon.
Mung writes the following, oblivious to the fact that Upright is waving his arms and mouthing “Shut up!”:
Mung,
Why don’t you ask Upright
1) whether self-replicating molecules can transfer “recorded information”;
2) if they can, what is the “representation” and what is the “protocol”; and
3) whether the representation and protocol constitute an irreducibly complex system.
If he answers “no” to #1, then refer him to this comment.
I look forward to the spectacle.
Upright challenges Alan to link to someone – anyone – who has identified logical problems or ambiguities in his argument. He claims that there have been no such objections.
Drawing upon previous TSZ threads spanning April 15 to July 20 I will here summarize a few of mine. None of the following objections and observations have been successfully rebutted, in my judgment.
– First is UB’s muddled use of “entailment.”
During the course of his participation at TSZ UB pivoted from one use of “entailment” to another, an equivocation that exemplified what is muddled about his understanding of entailment and implication, and indeed what is muddled about his entire presentation.
On April 18, at the outset of this discussion, I anticipated that ambiguity:
UB:
RB:
First notice that Biped characterizes his “entailments” as “physical consequences of recorded information.” He doesn’t identify them as “necessary and sufficient conditions for the transfer of recorded information,” as he does following his pivot. There is no reading of “physical consequences of” that yields “necessary and sufficient conditions for” without acknowledging severe ambiguity in the former. When he employs “entailment” in this sense of “physical consequences,” his claim that observing such consequences “successfully confirms a semiotic state” commits the error of implication that was subsequently discussed at length on that thread. Nor was this an isolated mispeaking. I later showed that, in his missives to Larry Moran and to Lizzie, UB repeatedly employed similarly logically flawed reasoning in which his later revised, “post pivot” use of “entailment” is nowhere to be found.
Links:
http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=659&cpage=13#comment-14616
Notice also that, in the above quoted passage, I anticipated his later pivot at the outset of our discussion. On April 26 I similarly remarked:
This again anticipates Biped’s later pivot to using “entailment” not in the sense of entailments that are “physical consequences”, but in the sense that if a phenomenon has occurred, observation of necessary and sufficient conditions for the phenomenon is “entailed.” This is a more or less useless form of “entailment” that, as deployed by Biped in this discussion, assumes its conclusions, almost exactly as I anticipated in the quoted passages above.
I identified that uselessness at the moment of his pivot:
Biped:
RB:
I repeated the latter observation perhaps six or seven times (more?), but UB never responded to that objection in any way, and later pointedly quote-mined my response in a way that removed that objection. It remains wholly unrebutted.
Rather, Biped seemed to think that his completion of a pivot from a use of “entailment” in a sense that yields reasoning beset by a fatal logical flaw to a sense that is useless because it assumes its conclusions was a decisive moment in the discussion, and rescued him from the observation that he really doesn’t understand how to use entailment in a scientific context. He also seems to think that my observation of one set of intractable problems prior to his pivot and a second set of problems post-pivot represented a “concession” on my part. Neither was the case.
– Second is Biped’s unwillingness, and apparently his inability, to state what “a semiotic state” entails that “the transfer of information” does not. That question was posed to him perhaps 20 times. He offered only non-responsive replies (e.g. restating his definitions of “a semiotic state” and “the TRI” without responding to the question).
– Third is UB’s related claim that it is an empirical observation, and not simply a definition, that results in the claim that “the transfer of information is by necessity semiotic”:
UB:
RB:
Yet another objection that remains wholly unrebutted.
– Fourth is the Silence of the Bipeds on the question of the origins of the entailments/the TRI/semiotic states – which one might have assumed was the point of the entire empty exercise.
UB:
Never mind the question of how something can be “the necessary material conditions for” something else without being regarded as the cause of that something else (more muddle). I responded:
And, of course, later:
RB:
– And last, for now, I would like to recall the first comment I made on these threads:
UB:
RB:
IOW, it follows from UB’s premises that the existence of the sort of designer we all know he wishes to infer from “the material observations” is excluded at the outset by those very premises.
A rare reply from Upright Biped:
Joe gets it right for once:
Indeed, I am almost certain (from long experience) that Upright would like to avoid my questions by focusing instead on irrelevant details. Fortunately, that’s not necessary. We can talk about self-replicating molecules in the abstract, just as Upright talks about semiotic systems in the abstract.
First let’s consider the simplest type of self-replication, in which a molecule S generates a copy of itself by reacting directly with its components (C0, C1, …Cn):
S + C0 + C1 + … Cn -> 2S
Upright,
In such a system:
1. Has recorded information been transferred from the original molecule S to its copy?
2. If not, why not?
3. If so, then what is the representation and what is the protocol?
4. Do the protocol and representation, taken together, constitute an irreducibly complex system?
UBP/Mung, we at least now know that “arbitrary” is not what onlooker has attempted to define.
So, what is the definition of “arbitrary” as UBP uses it?
One sentence should define it, but if you want to evade it, write as many as you like. 🙂
Upright Biped,
Take some objects and throw them into a pool of water.
The ones that float are lighter than water and the ones that sink to the bottom are heavier.
No “representation instantiated in matter” was used to transfer this “information”.
🙂
Information transferred without a “representation instantiated in matter”:
1) The water level is higher, therefore water has been added to the pool.
You’ve given me a better argument than I had imagined since the water in the pool has left no “representation” of any type.
The “information” in “dFSCI” must be very specific for gpuccio and any other ID arguments that refer to the improbability of random search spaces when comparing “dFSCI” to other “processes”.
If the “information” in “dFSCI” is allowed a degree of “freedom of choice”, it is a form of randomness which “gpuccio” cannot accept as designed.
No, but rather because you’ve allowed less “specification” for the “information”.
This does not help gpuccio.
I think there’s a good possibility I might mean exactly what Upright BiPed means by arbitrary.
Ask for his definition and we’ll examine it.
I’ve been typing. If you’re hearing voices, get help.
That’s exactly why you unknowingly, and I consciously, are little by little, tearing Upright BiPed’s argument apart.
The last thing we would want to subject science students to is ID, a completely nonsensical “”sounds-like-science” interpretation of Genesis.
So now that you and I have refuted Upright BiPed’s argument that a “material representation” is required for “information transfer”, let’s focus on gpuccio.
Upright has been avoiding Reciprocating Bill’s questions since July, so what does he do? He asks Bill some questions and then complains when Bill hasn’t answered them within fourteen hours of being asked:
Bill replies:
While you’re waiting impatiently, Upright, how about responding to my rebuttal of your argument?
Mung,
I didn’t expect an effective response from you, given your embarrassing performance in these debates, but I would like to see Upright Biped answer my rebuttal of his argument.
Embarrassing, but consistent! 🙂
Upright,
Thank you for responding to my rebuttal of your argument. I enjoy the rare moments when you come out of hiding and actually engage those critics of yours who have been banned from UD.
That said, I won’t hide my disappointment at the evasiveness of your response. You failed to address my key points — points which are fatal to your argument, as you and I both know.
Your argument is that
1) Darwinian evolution depends on the “transfer of recorded information”;
2) the “transfer of recorded information” requires two distinct arrangements of matter, a “representation” and a “protocol”;
3) the representation is necessarily distinct from the thing it represents, with the protocol providing the “bridge” between the two;
4) the representation and the protocol form an irreducibly complex system; and
5) though you’re oddly afraid to say so explicitly, you are inviting readers to conclude that this irreducibly complex system must have been designed.
Now consider self-replicating molecules.
a. Information can be transferred from a self-replicating molecule to its “offspring”. In my rebuttal, I described how a message could be sent from sender to receiver via a chain of self-replicating molecules.
b. A self-replicating molecule is its own representation, yet in your argument you incorrectly claim that the representation must be distinct from the thing it represents.
c. You claim that besides the representation, there must be a distinct arrangement of matter that you call the “protocol”. Well, there is no second arrangement of matter in the case of self-replicating molecules, so the “protocol” doesn’t exist. Yet information gets transferred anyway. So your claim that a protocol is required is incorrect.
d. If you were to try to argue that the self-replicating molecule is both the representation and the protocol, you would run into another problem, because your claim was that the representation and the protocol are separate arrangements of matter, and that together they form an irreducibly complex system. Your argument is therefore still wrong, even if you try this maneuver.
e. Another gambit would be for you to claim that self-replicating molecules don’t really transfer information, but that would be absurd because I’ve already showed how you could send a message using self-replicating molecules. You would be claiming that sending a message does not constitute a “transfer of recorded information”, which would be ridiculous.
f. You could attempt to argue that Darwinian evolution depends on the kind of information transfer you envision, with a representation and a distinct protocol. However, that’s just not correct. To get Darwinian evolution, all you need is replication with heritable variation and differential reproductive success.
Your argument is in tatters, Upright.
Actually it’s not.
All other forms of “semiotic code data” except information in the genome, can be copied onto inert material of different types.
All other codes are not “irreducibly complex” in relation to the media that carries it.
As an analogy, a photocopier does not work like biology as the paper and the data that will be copied to it can exist separately, meaning the data that appears on the paper is “materially arbitrary” to its carrier.
Cells when they split however, create both the media and the data.
Cells and the “data” in them therefore, are not “materially arbitrary”.
Secondly, in order to call DNA “recorded data”, the first instance of the data must be “materially arbitrary”.
If so, how does it get loaded into a cell without an original working cell to split?
Upright BiPed,
Mung has come up with an example of transferring information without a “representation instantiated in matter”.
I originally said to throw some objects into a pool of water, let’s say corks, stones, etc.
Whatever floats has less mass than water and whatever is “heavier”, sinks.
Then Mung said, “I’ve just thrown some water into the pool”, and I said, “The water level is higher, therefore water has been added to the pool”.
So together we have shown that we can transfer information without even a record of it happening or even arranging any matter into records of any type.
So, information can be transferred without a “representation instantiated in matter”.
Joe,
How can you say self-replication doesn’t work when we have shown we can do exactly that in software, ( i.e. essentially a version of “semiotic codes” as per Upright BiPed ) ?
Have you forgotten that it was you and I who refuted Upright BiPed’s contention that information cannot be transferred without a “representation instantiated in matter”?
It was you who threw the water in the pool and changed the level thus “informing” me that water had been added, without using any “semiotic codes” or “representations”.
So, Mung, 1000 posts and no refutation.
Guess now that ID has “won” it’s time for you to get on and, well, actually I’m not sure.
What is it you lot do when there is nobody around to argue with?
But if the “semiotic code” is a result of an agent, where did he get his?
In order for an agent to function, he would need to meet the same requirements of Earth life, in that he would require some sort of “semiotic code” to function even if it was not exactly like ours.
If your designing agent doesn’t need a designed “semiotic code”, why would you assume we need a designer for our “semiotic code”?
Upright writes:
Upright,
My previous comment, thanks to onlooker, is staring at you from your very own thread at UD. To no one’s surprise, you are tiptoeing around it and trying to avoid addressing it.
As that comment explains, the transfer of information via self-replicating molecules completely demolishes your argument. If you disagree, then provide a counterargument. If you agree, then your only hope is to demonstrate that information transfer via self-replicating molecules is impossible. Good luck with that.
Eric Anderson:
Eric,
LMGTFY
I swear Mung, as I read this, I can actually hear the sound your hands make grasping at any straws they think can save you! 🙂
The bottom line is bricks sink and corks float and that informs you of their mass relative to water, without any “representation instantiated in matter”.
So Upright is wrong.
Mung, does that mean it is not “materially arbitrary”?
I think what Upright means by “materially arbitrary”, is that it is not constrained by any material restrictions.
Up to now I think that is what he meant.
Upright, am I right?
Mung:
Mung,
You are amusingly predictable. The moment I saw the Google results, I knew that 1) you would find that title irresistible, and that you would cherry-pick it for no other reason, and 2) that you wouldn’t bother to actually understand what the article says. I was right on both counts.
First, Upright claims in his argument that the “transfer of recorded information” cannot happen without two separate arrangements of matter, a representation that is distinct from the thing represented and a protocol that translates the representation into the thing represented. Therefore, as I’ve already explained, the mere existence of information transfer via self-replicating molecules is enough to prove Upright wrong. Whether life began with a self-replicating molecule or with a self-replicating network of simple molecules, as Shapiro suggests, is a separate question.
Second, the article states:
To make a successful argument for ID based on this idea, you would need to show that Shapiro’s hypothetical system of cross-replicating molecules was too complex to have arisen via unguided natural processes. Have at it.
Mung:
Why? How is this relevant to whether Upright’s argument is wrong?
Upright’s “Semiotic Theory” is really a “Semiotic Labeling Theory” where he points out labels used in understanding human language and communications, and mapping them onto biology.
His “theory” ends right after the labeling is done but before any analysis or conclusions are reached.
I also have a theory that’s just as useful where I apply labels to ID as in, “The Genesis Theory Of ID”.
In it we have a designer who I have labeled “God”, that knows exactly what’s going to happen in the future since he does not have the capability of designing biology that can survive in changing environments, like the ones he fine-tunes with asteroid strikes and world-wide floods.
Why a designer that can fine-tune the universe and its physical laws, and is in control of future events, and can override biology for things like virgin births, but for some reason can’t design biology that actually behaves as science has been mistakenly fooled into believing it behaves, is beyond me.
So far as I am concerned, the fat lady sang vis Upright’s semiotic theory during this exchange:
RB:
UB:
RB:
UB:
No wonder he evaded those questions for so long.
UB earlier finished one of his screeds to Lizzie with:
In his above exchange with me he clearly indicates that it does not follow from semiotic theory that the entailments of information transfer are beyond even a conceptual unguided process. He should therefore retract his earlier accusation.
You should relabel “The Theory Of ID” to “The Theory Of Grasping For Straws”! 🙂
My “bricks” and “corks” transferred information regarding their mass ,without a “material representation”.
Upright BiPed is wrong.
Your defence of Upright’s “theory” is to agree that it doesn’t do anything?
Really?
No you don’t, any more than an accountant “already” has the information that Rice Crispies cost more than a Popsicle, simply by virtue of being educated as an accountant.
Despite not studying physics, only an ignorant caveman would make his raft out of rocks instead of cork after seeing that.
You may not be aware of this, but some humans have made ships out of steel, and yet none of them violates the physics of “corks and rocks”! 🙂
A ship will displace X mass of water depending on the thickness of the hull and the volume of space in the hull.
If the hull was solid, a ship built of material with greater mass than water, would sink.
Upright’s argument has been refuted as no “representation of matter” was required for the transfer of information, in this case, that corks have less mass than bricks.
No language, no protocol and no pre-existing information was required.
Upright is wrong.
There is no material protocol involved.
When someone loses a limb and gets fitted with a motorized artificial one , the nerve endings “adapt” to the new arm even though the original nerves that are tapped for control, were not born with the “material protocol” to control artificial servos.
In the case of artificial eyesight, electrical stimulation of nerves that were never used as a “material protocol” for sight, are used to get the “information” into the blind human subject.
Visual “information” is not a transcribed representation, it is rather a result of your optical system reacting to a random bombardment of photons.
Out of all the trillions of photons that missed striking the lens of your eyes, those that did had no intention of transcribing reality for your benefit as they too, did not follow any “protocol” for the transfer of information.
Holy crap, :), you are on a roll today! 🙂
Yes! Finally!
Are you suggesting that a really big cork would sink and a really small brick would float? 🙂
This is why judges react like they do at Dover to IDists.
You will notice UBP used the word assume as if the intent of the sentence might have been that he had adopted a “pre-assumed conclusion”, which of course is not good science.
What RB was saying I believe, is that UBP’s “theory” does not arrive at any conclusions.
So just to be sure Upright, after all this work you put in, what conclusions did you arrive at?
What is the point of a theory that says nothing , even to its own champion?
I’d imagine Upright has a book coming out any day now…….
I’m sure it will be a Lulu.
Masterfull. Thanks for putting in the time. It was compelling reading.
Upright Biped
Linebreaks added by me for readability.
Well it seems UB confirms he is making an “irreducible complexity” argument for the origins of DNA translation. A problem for OOL research rather than evolutionary theory, I guess. And still a default argument.
The recorded information you’re talking about can come about in at least two ways:
1) The information could have been recorded into living things by an intelligent designer in order to guide their development towards a goal
or
2) The information could be a record of the successful modifications of that information in living things, as they adapt to their environment, in a non-guided by a conscious intelligence process that has no goal.
Your “semiotic theory” describes both.
How does your theory tell them apart?
Upright, to Reciprocating Bill:
Upright,
Bill is pointing out that by your own admission, the “semiotic theory of ID” — even if we assume it is correct — says nothing about ID. It’s useless.
But your “theory” isn’t just useless, it’s wrong. You assert that
The transfer of information via self-replicating molecules shows that your claim is false.
The “Semiotic Theory of ID”: It’s wrong, but it would be useless even if it were right.
Well no, that’s the same error UBP is making. “Darwinian evolution requires the system [protein translation] in order to exist”, quoth he. An assertion completely without foundation. Darwin himself was unaware of the details of molecular biology, and the principle of NS never did hinge upon them. Only more recently have we discovered this interesting chicken-egg problem; it is not foundational to a process of ‘Darwinian’ NS or gradual generational change and diversification.
It may be ‘true’ (an actual-state-of-affairs) that Life is impossible without protein translation in the modern style, but I see no strong evidence for that. We simply have the fact that LWPITMS cannot be presently observed. Either Life-without-protein never existed, or it is now extinct. UBP simply declares the former, without evidence.
Damn amateurs!
I do tend to paint with a broad brush, and sloppily!
But I find the interesting question (and the hardest for science to answer, I suspect) is where is the point that evolutionary processes can kick in. The fact that, at a biochemical level, living organisms are so similar, hinders speculation about what the precursors might have looked like and what conditions nurtured them. Was there an RNA world? But, as you say, not knowing is no excuse to give in and make stuff up.
All Upright has to do is use his “idea” and produce something, some novel information or insight. Anything really. But as it stands he might as well write it on a brick and throw it into the sea for all the impact it’s had or going to have.
Go on Upright, use your “idea” and do some science. Dare you!
Darwin had an idea. Darwin went out and supported that idea. Upright, you have an idea……
Apologies if someone has already pointed this out but, I noticed a comment by “derwood” at the thread linked to in the OP. He links to a forum “Political Bullpen” and a thread started by Upright Biped back in March entitled Materialist on this forum ignore empirical evidence.
Some of the ground covered is a bit familiar!
You and me both! I’ve got a degree, so my knowledge of biochemistry circa 1978 is absolutely tip-top! 😉
I still favour the RNA world, or something like it, though I know plenty of biochemists laugh at that notion, because of the properties of RNA. But the problems with protein are no less – particularly a plausible mechanism that allows repetitive production of useful sequence. The advantage of the RNA world is that RNA itself can be ‘useful sequence’, and proteins loosely specified or not at all, with only later some segments being fed into ribosomes that constrain specificity, and deoxy single strands matched with a complement for double-stranded safe keeping. Many RNAs are still ‘useful sequence’ today, without going within a sniff of a ribosome (which is itself mostly RNA). I’d see protein as a secretion of nucleic-acid life which opened up a massive arena of catalysis once the amino acid library had expanded enough to generate stably folding globular proteins. Ribosomes and proteins didn’t start specific, they became so.
As far as Darwinian evolution kicking in, it requires only a system with a particular property: the property of making copies of the system. Anything that can balance copy production and loss at an average rate in excess of the magic number 1 has discovered exponentiation which, in a finite world with imperfect replication, inevitably leads to ‘Darwinian’ evolution. And in principle, you only need one molecule to seed the whole shebang, making identifying that molecule 3-4 billion years later a bit of a tough nut. Even if you had one in a test tube, you might not notice. But yes, it’s fine to talk of the minimal conditions, quite another to mix ingredients in a jar then run screaming from whatever emerges!
Joe, you have just stated that Upright’s theory is useless.
ROFL. So the theory is silent on the cause so Joe inserts his “designer” on the basis of, well, nothing at all! And then claims that is “evidence” for ID.
Joe, so what stops “the cause” being something other then your “Intelligent Designer”? If you don’t know the cause on what basis can you claim it’s anything at all in particular?
ID – science by fiat.