Comments on: The Miracle of Life

By: Joshua W. Burton

Joshua W. Burton — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 23:49:25 +0000

By the way, the larger point is that there’s no evidence for any of the GUTs that imply proton decay either. To the best of our current knowledge, protons simply don’t decay. Bringing us back on topic, abiola’s remark amounts to an “intelligent design” model for the baryon asymmetry that we observe all around us, which is some 10 billion times greater than can be explained by random primordial fluctuations frozen out by the Hubble expansion. The idea here, I suppose, would be that there is more matter than antimatter because the (observable piece of the) universe was just made that way. A more parsimonious explanation, involving no GUTs or supersymmetry, is contained within the good old standard model, though it wasn’t until the mid-1980s that Kuzmin, Rubakov, et aliae noticed it. Sakharov (yes, that Sakharov) taught us back in the 1970s that certain symmetry violations (already observed in neutral kaon decay) + proton decay + out-of-thermal-equilibrium expansion in the early universe = (is necessary and sufficient for) baryon asymmetry. And Kuzmin’s sphaleron mechanism provides a high-temperature mechanism for the proton decay part, even without any “new” physics. The actual rate is billions of times too low to be observable in current-generation proton decay experiments, but it’s still part of standard model physics. Since there is no known self-consistent theory that lacks sphaleron-induced proton decay, it should probably be argued that any evidence for any electroweak theory, such as the standard model, is evidence for proton decay. That is, burden of proof shifts to someone who thinks she can come up with a particle physics model without it. Oh, and if you do somehow suppress high-temperature nonperturbative baryon decay through sphalerons (lifetime around 10 to the 45 years) you’re left with virtual black-hole induced baryon decay at 10 to the 60 years or so. To make the proton truly stable, you have to somehow get past both Weinberg-Salam and Einstein.

By: Angus

Angus — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 01:54:43 +0000

Canada’s hockey players are the best in the world. Why? Because Joe Sakic and company beat a pee wee team from Minnesota? No, because they beat the best teams from other countries at the Olympics. (Okay, so they lost to Sweden at the beginning, but we’ll ignore that embarrassing fact.) If you want to defeat ID, you have to refute the best ID has to offer in the way of arguments. In this respect, check out Michael J. Behe’s website, in particular his piece “Philosophical Objections to Intelligent Design: Response to Critics”. If anyone knows of good responses to Behe’s responses, please let me know. And that’s not even getting into the matter of the “fine tuning”-of-the-universe argument….

By: AAB

AAB — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 15:12:48 +0000

Justin, please also look at http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/icdmyst/ICDmyst.html regarding the IC issue.

By: AAB

AAB — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 15:09:55 +0000

Justin said: “ID proponents (like myself) declare that Darwin’s evolution fails to explain irreducibly complex systems.” Justin look for Evolutionists answer to this here: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200.html Just consider the evolution of the eye. In the beginning there might have been a collection of molecules that is sensitive to light. This primitive eye would differentiate light from dark. Then some of the molecules (say 20% of total) of this primitive eye would specialize to distinguish, say, red from blue. Then other parts of the molecules (say 60%) would specialize only in filtering out the light that the other 20% molecules have better use for.. etc.. This could be a gradual evolution of the eye. It is not like to has to evolve parts at a time that till the entire eye is complete the part is useless.

By: mc

mc — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 08:24:26 +0000

Justin, you’re ignoring that crucial “if it could be demonstrated” part of Darwin’s statement. Any theory can disprove a pre-existing one, that’s a given. But it would have to be based on the same scientific standards and methods of reasoning and research. An amateurish implant of scientific language into creationism doesn’t fit the bill. It’s not even a “theory” per se. It’s based on a dogma, of a religious nature, with religion reduced to some incredibly lifeless, sterile form of mental rigidity, and then pretends to proceed by flawed scientific argument. Thereby doing a terrible mess of both religion and science.

By: msg

msg — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 04:35:57 +0000

Vivian: Stuart Kauffman’s Investigations – not-Vivian- The arrogance, humble though it is, of any human being predicting the entropic flat-line of this limitless environment, this universe, this thing we sit within, with its spatially infinite dimensions and its necessarily endless temporal co-ordinates, never stops amazing me. And irritating the shit out of me. Though periodically I can listen to it or read people making confident statements as to its inevitability without having stomach upset. But it does sound the way I imagine terracentric cosmologists sounded in the 15th century. It’s received wisdom, patriarchal energy transmitted in the classroom. Something you have to believe to be a man. It’s specious horseshit and no different from the desperate illogic of religionists. Rationalizing a faulty world-view because you’ve already committed to it, at the expense of your soul’s more accurate sense of wonder and awe. – I like to play with the idea that maybe not only is there a Designer/Creator, but also a Real-Estate Broker, a Banker, and maybe something like a Linebacker or a News Anchor. Also maybe a Waitress, Stanley Kubrick’s Fetus, a Police Sergeant, and a Pedophile Bishop or two; I mean on the scale of an Intelligent Designer. Bigtime Players. The Demi-Urge, the Semi-Demi-Urge, the Red-Neck-Urge, The Devil, the Devil’s Lawyer’s Personal Trainer. All bigger than the solar system. Huge other entities. Because so much of what’s espoused as revelation hinges on the suffering and persecution of the saintly being all right, in fact necessary. But if it isn’t, if it’s really the case that in the Celestial Spheres, just like down here in the real world good people are outnumbered eighty to one by greedy little bastards, and thugs, and violent cowardly opportunists, and treacherous liars etc, then it’s just like this, only bigger. That there is a larger context but there’s no escape. That it’s just as dicey in the upper levels and there’s something not quite right wherever, we are wherever we go, because it’s in us. That the imbalance is part of what we are. Because we’re here. Wherever it is we are. – Cancer’s no morally different than nuclear war, if you’re looking at it dispassionately from the safety of Alpha-Centauri. But just because Jerry Falwell has his head entirely up his lower intestine does not in any way mean that human beings are the highest form of intelligent life in the, deep breath, entire universe. And it seems quite likely, that something/someone exists somewhere that is not measurable on our anthro-centric scales of intelligence, too far outside our perception to be lensed and proven by any laboratory metric. – I do know this. This world was living and balanced as we began our rush toward industrial triumph, and it’s so out of balance now it’s about to full-system crash. The twin delusions, of revealed dominion and sanction, and of solitary agency with no discernible governor – the religious fundamentalist and the positivist fundamentalist – did this while they argued like conjoined twins. – The patriarchal deity, God’s Eye for the Material Pie, may well be a myth, but the carte blanche human entitlement that seems to immediately follow its refutation seems equally chimerical, and just as dangerous.

By: vietulooj

vietulooj — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 03:08:46 +0000

In response to sujit, at least one of the rules Wolfram mentions, rule 110 is Turing complete.

By: Abiola Lapite

Abiola Lapite — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 01:42:46 +0000

By the way, the larger point is that there’s no evidence for any of the GUTs that imply proton decay either. To the best of our current knowledge, protons simply don’t decay.

By: Abiola Lapite

Abiola Lapite — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 01:35:21 +0000

“abiola, protons are expected to decay (due to a set of as yet unobserved phenomena physicists need to make their theories make sense – google on supersymmetry)” Thanks for the info, but I was already well aware of the fact that various GUTs imply proton decay. The point is that there’s no evidence for it so far.

By: vivian

vivian — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 00:44:48 +0000

Sujit: Great idea using the arrow of time against the central ID trope! I wonder if you’ll get any serious replies, or persuade anyone? (we can only hope) Although Wolfram is not the best place to learn about spontaneous complexity. Smart guy, but everyone makes mistakes, infers too much from too little. That’s why most of us collaborate and submit to peer review. You’d do better to read Stuart Kauffman’s Investigations (really cheap at Amazon, but when I tried to paste the link I crashed the comment window). Thoughtful, careful research, incredibly good explanations of each of his steps, and he actually runs the numbers – how large is the set of possibilities, how quickly does it grow, how many have occurred since the beginning of the universe (or the earth, or human history)? Instead of simply waving one’s hands about “gee, that sounds like it’s improbable to me” – much stronger arguments. His other books are great too, though Origins of Order requires hardcore math to follow it. Also look for stuff by John Holland, Bob Axelrod and the rest of the Santa Fe Institute crowd. Collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, careful work, cool programs, amazing scenery.

By: J. Michael Neal

J. Michael Neal — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 22:12:16 +0000

“ID proponents (like myself) declare that Darwin’s evolution fails to explain irreducibly complex systems.” My problem with ID (okay, one of them) is that it doesn’t actually explain complexity at all, it just pushes it up the chain. You are still left with trying to explain where the complex intelligence that can design all of these things came from. As far as I can tell, ID proponents either don’t address this question at all, or simply assume that it was always there. As an explanation for complexity, neither is very satisfying.

By: bill carone

bill carone — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 22:03:25 +0000

Justin, “ID proponents (like myself) declare that Darwin’s evolution fails to explain irreducibly complex systems.” I’m no expert; my comment on ID is based on my readings of Dawkins and Dennett. “Throwing theology in the mix is a red herring to distract from ID findings.” I agree; ID should be judged on it’s ability to explain and predict observations, just like any scientific enterprise. If observations go against you, you wouldn’t just say “Well, God says its so, so it is,” or anything like that, right? If evolution were proved beyond reasonable doubt, you would reject the parts of ID that contradicted it, no? All I was saying is that religion doesn’t contradict science; indeed, since both aim at producing truth, they cannot conflict. If ID doesn’t fit the evidence, then thoughtful scientists and theologians alike would reject it.

By: martin

martin — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 22:03:06 +0000

Could I quibble with this statement: Their genes differ from those of normal cells in many big and little ways The genes in normal and cancer cells will be identical or very nearly so. It is the expression of those genes that differs. One or a small number of genes may have collected a mutation as a result of which the regulatory mechanisms that govern gene expression are no longer operative.

By: Andrew Shultz

Andrew Shultz — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 20:49:30 +0000

ID without Theology is like a sandwitch with not filling. It’s pretty clear that something is supposed to go in the middle, and you’re not fooling anyone saying you’re just going to eat the bread as is.

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 19:38:55 +0000

bc said: As for the ID crowd, my understanding is that their theories don’t fit the observations, so it fails both on scientific and on religious grounds. Darwin said: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” (Origin of Species, 6th ed. (1988), p. 154) – Darwin ID proponents (like myself) declare that Darwin’s evolution fails to explain irreducibly complex systems. Throwing theology in the mix is a red herring to distract from ID findings.