[norcalclimber]

Hm. It's just possible we have an English-to-English translation issue here... 

My interpretation of "intelligent" includes not only doing stuff, but doing it to achieve an end. That might be me typing a comment on a forum, or my cat mewing for food or even, at a pinch, an insect jumping out of the way of a descending boot. Molecules, and when it comes right down to it the bits of life that aren't just molecules responding to their environment are insignificant compared to the bits that are (consider the full glory of an ATP cleaving, hydrogen pumping protein), can't have intelligence in this sense.

Evolution does (amazing!) stuff, but it's all done by tiny random changes (which may have large effects, or small effects, or effects which are only of cumulative importance). That's not, to my mind, either intelligence or design, it's just monumentally cool...

Once you start attributing "intelligence", in the means-to-an-end sense, to the processes of life, I'd say you're either invoking (whether you know it or not) a higher power, or attributing an equivalent level of intelligence to the little pots of (very simple) chemical soups currently stirring in my fumehood in the lab. I hold my hand up to suspecting them of being malicious, but then I'm a PhD student and I think I'm just being paranoid on that one.

Survival isn't an objective for life (although it may become so for life-forms), it's the end result of a whole lot of coincidences (those individuals which take a cautious approach to lions survive, those who don't, don't, and only the former pass on either genes or learnt behaviours).

Wow, if you honestly believe all the components of life are just monumental coincidences then you really have a tremendous amount of faith.

We also now know that evolution is not just "random changes".  It is still up for debate how much is actually "random", but without a shadow of a doubt we can see that epigenetics plays a huge part in DNA.  Epigenetics is the software which decides how to run the DNA code, and epigenetics is specifically influenced by choices made in the life of the organism.  Please watch "Was Darwin Wrong?" by Naked Science, at the end they discuss epigenetics a little bit; Pay close attention to what they tell us we are learning.

You can break up life into individual bases, but that is no longer life.  Life (as we know it) contains either DNA or RNA.  When you go smaller than that, it is no longer life but rather the components of life.  At that level, it may be purely chemical reaction.  Saying that the individual bases which are used to build life, are actually life, would be like saying a tire is a car.  Life, does in fact try to survive.  An individual tries to survive however it can, and a species tries to survive(through procreation) however it can.  A specific base may not have intelligence, but single celled bacteria certainly does... even though it is just a collection of bases.

[rosy]

Wow, if you honestly believe all the components of life are just monumental coincidences then you really have a tremendous amount of faith.

You think so? Not really. The combination of random mutation and selection over a very long time seems to me to be a perfectly adequate explanation.
Yes, I know what epigenetics is.
Yes, epigenetics is important to what happens to an individual, that's not news. Barr bodies have been known about for years, and  which X chromosome it is that folds up is inherited between cells within an individual (including the effect to which carriers of haemophilia are themselves deficient in whichever-clotting-factor-it-is, and, according to my 1st year cell biology lecturer, tortoiseshell cats).
Certainly one might expect some epigenetic effects to carry over between generations.
And this is all very interesting. But I fail to see how it supports your vitalist speculations. All this talk of the "choices" organisms make.. do E. coli make choices in any meaningful sense? Do hair follicles? Hair follicles are on the face of it much more complicated cells than E. coli. Are you attributing this intelligence to some sort of "life force"? You seem to privilege the DNA polymer over individual bases, why? Do you believe DNA/RNA is in some way special (beyond the fact that it happens to form the basis of the genome?
I just can't work out where you imagine this "intelligence" works its way in. Can you explain?

[norcalclimber]

Wow, if you honestly believe all the components of life are just monumental coincidences then you really have a tremendous amount of faith.

You think so? Not really. The combination of random mutation and selection over a very long time seems to me to be a perfectly adequate explanation.
Yes, I know what epigenetics is.
Yes, epigenetics is important to what happens to an individual, that's not news. Barr bodies have been known about for years, and  which X chromosome it is that folds up is inherited between cells within an individual (including the effect to which carriers of haemophilia are themselves deficient in whichever-clotting-factor-it-is, and, according to my 1st year cell biology lecturer, tortoiseshell cats).
Certainly one might expect some epigenetic effects to carry over between generations.
And this is all very interesting. But I fail to see how it supports your vitalist speculations. All this talk of the "choices" organisms make.. do E. coli make choices in any meaningful sense? Do hair follicles? Hair follicles are on the face of it much more complicated cells than E. coli. Are you attributing this intelligence to some sort of "life force"? You seem to privilege the DNA polymer over individual bases, why? Do you believe DNA/RNA is in some way special (beyond the fact that it happens to form the basis of the genome?
I just can't work out where you imagine this "intelligence" works its way in. Can you explain?

And that is the crux of it.

Where is the line which delineates consciousness from purely chemical reaction?  Where does "choice" come in?

I really don't know.  But I do know that the more we understand about life, the more complex and dynamic we see it really is.  Purely random is already an abstract, because no matter what there is always a limited range of possibilities at the molecular level.  The more dynamic and complex we see life actually is, the more the range of possibilities appears to have been limited even further.  There is always an inherent random nature, this allows diversity.  But there is a separate level of control as well, which keeps a population stable enough to continue to reproduce.  I have no idea how exactly this control is exerted, how it gathers information, or how it makes choices.  But in the past 200 or so years of research, we have repeatedly seen that life is capable of evolving far more rapidly than we previously thought.  We have also seen that even significant phenotypical changes can occur without even changing the DNA.  We are discovering that what we used to think was "junk DNA" is actually critical.  I do feel that all life as we know it has some programmed desire for immortality, but I do not pretend to know where it came from nor do I think it is supernatural in any way.

[echochartruse]

Perhaps I am the one misinterpreting.... but it seems to me that echo is saying that the life itself which evolved to suit it's environment is the "intelligence", not some "higher power".  Personally, life seems extremely intelligent.... all I have to do is look around and I see some pretty incredible things which "life" came up with.  This doesn't make me believe in a "god", but it does make me suspect that life is far more complex than we realize.

Thank you for putting it right, exactly what I meant

[Geezer]

[There is always an inherent random nature, this allows diversity.  But there is a separate level of control as well, which keeps a population stable enough to continue to reproduce.  I have no idea how exactly this control is exerted, how it gathers information, or how it makes choices.  But in the past 200 or so years of research, we have repeatedly seen that life is capable of evolving far more rapidly than we previously thought.  We have also seen that even significant phenotypical changes can occur without even changing the DNA.  We are discovering that what we used to think was "junk DNA" is actually critical.

These are good questions. However, if you are going to assert that these are scientifically proven theories, you really need to provide some support for them. Failing that, it's really just your opinion. Nothing wrong with having an opinion of course, but you really should try to distinguish between the two.

TNS tries to keep things upbeat and lighthearted. Science does not have to be boring, but TNS is also very interested in supporting proven scientific theory and all the incredibly painstaking research that goes along with it.

TNS also welcomes new theories too, which is why TNS has a forum for new theories.

[norcalclimber]

[There is always an inherent random nature, this allows diversity.  But there is a separate level of control as well, which keeps a population stable enough to continue to reproduce.  I have no idea how exactly this control is exerted, how it gathers information, or how it makes choices.  But in the past 200 or so years of research, we have repeatedly seen that life is capable of evolving far more rapidly than we previously thought.  We have also seen that even significant phenotypical changes can occur without even changing the DNA.  We are discovering that what we used to think was "junk DNA" is actually critical.

These are good questions. However, if you are going to assert that these are scientifically proven theories, you really need to provide some support for them. Failing that, it's really just your opinion. Nothing wrong with having an opinion of course, but you really should try to distinguish between the two.

TNS tries to keep things upbeat and lighthearted. Science does not have to be boring, but TNS is also very interested in supporting proven scientific theory and all the incredibly painstaking research that goes along with it.

TNS also welcomes new theories too, which is why TNS has a forum for new theories.

Here is some evidence which shows why "junk" DNA is not actually junk:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071025112059.htm

[Geezer]

Here is some evidence which shows why "junk" DNA is not actually junk:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071025112059.htm

No disagreement there, but I don't understand how that might lead one to conclude that there was an intelligent designer.

[norcalclimber]

Here is some evidence which shows why "junk" DNA is not actually junk:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071025112059.htm

No disagreement there, but I don't understand how that might lead one to conclude that there was an intelligent designer.

I completely agree that it wouldn't lead one to conclude there was an intelligent designer.  The evidence in support of an organism "designing" itself I posted on the topic where I asked if "intelligent design" evolved.  But as I had made the statement about junk DNA on this topic I thought I should answer that here.

[Geezer]

Ah. OK - Thanks!

[echochartruse]

............... We are discovering that what we used to think was "junk DNA" is actually critical.

These are good questions. However, if you are going to assert that these are scientifically proven theories, you really need to provide some support for them. Failing that, it's really just your opinion. Nothing wrong with having an opinion of course, but you really should try to distinguish between the two.

TNS tries to keep things upbeat and lighthearted. Science does not have to be boring, but TNS is also very interested in supporting proven scientific theory and all the incredibly painstaking research that goes along with it.

please read
http://www.murdoch.edu.au/News/Shaking-up-the-theory-of-evolution/

https://www-pls.llnl.gov/?url=science_and_technology-life_sciences-junk_dna

Evidence is now being accumulated which indicates that much or most of this DNA may not be junk, but critical for life itself.

This view must be evaluated in light of the fact that the history of science is replete with now discarded theories that once supported Darwinism but increasing knowledge has rendered obsolete.  Examples include vestigial organs

New research is beginning to overturn the view that most of the genome has no function.

 

In recent years, researchers have recognised that non-coding DNA, which makes up about 98 per cent of the human genome, plays a critical role in determining whether genes are active or not and how much of a particular protein gets churned out.

Now, two teams have revealed dramatic differences between the non-coding DNA of people whose genes are 99 per cent the same. "We largely have the same sets of genes. It's just how they're regulated that makes them different," says Michael Snyder, a geneticist at Stanford University in California.....
....Kelly Frazer, a genomicist at the University of California, San Diego, says the new studies help explain why many common mutations linked to diseases are located so far from any gene. For instance, a certain mutation that increases the risk of heart attack by 60 per cent is not close to a gene.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg, Frazer says. By homing in on non-coding DNA, researchers should begin to unravel what truly makes people different. "I think these two papers are the beginning of a field that's going to be growing rapidly in the next few years," she says.

Journal references: Science, DOIs: 10.1126/science.1184655 and 10.1126/science.1183621

[RD]

...  Examples include vestigial organs (the claim that in humans

Echochartruse's posts remind me of Asyncritus's

[Geezer]

............... We are discovering that what we used to think was "junk DNA" is actually critical.

These are good questions. However, if you are going to assert that these are scientifically proven theories, you really need to provide some support for them. Failing that, it's really just your opinion. Nothing wrong with having an opinion of course, but you really should try to distinguish between the two.

TNS tries to keep things upbeat and lighthearted. Science does not have to be boring, but TNS is also very interested in supporting proven scientific theory and all the incredibly painstaking research that goes along with it.

please read
http://www.murdoch.edu.au/News/Shaking-up-the-theory-of-evolution/

https://www-pls.llnl.gov/?url=science_and_technology-life_sciences-junk_dna

Evidence is now being accumulated which indicates that much or most of this DNA may not be junk, but critical for life itself.

This view must be evaluated in light of the fact that the history of science is replete with now discarded theories that once supported Darwinism but increasing knowledge has rendered obsolete.  Examples include vestigial organs (the claim that in humans

New research is beginning to overturn the view that most of the genome has no function.

 

In recent years, researchers have recognised that non-coding DNA, which makes up about 98 per cent of the human genome, plays a critical role in determining whether genes are active or not and how much of a particular protein gets churned out.

Now, two teams have revealed dramatic differences between the non-coding DNA of people whose genes are 99 per cent the same. "We largely have the same sets of genes. It's just how they're regulated that makes them different," says Michael Snyder, a geneticist at Stanford University in California.....
....Kelly Frazer, a genomicist at the University of California, San Diego, says the new studies help explain why many common mutations linked to diseases are located so far from any gene. For instance, a certain mutation that increases the risk of heart attack by 60 per cent is not close to a gene.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg, Frazer says. By homing in on non-coding DNA, researchers should begin to unravel what truly makes people different. "I think these two papers are the beginning of a field that's going to be growing rapidly in the next few years," she says.

Journal references: Science, DOIs: 10.1126/science.1184655 and 10.1126/science.1183621

Thanks for the links Echo.

It makes sense that so caled junk DNA is not really junk. Presumably there is an energy cost associated with DNA replication. Nature is pretty good at eliminating waste, so would it allow something to persist that serves no purpose?

[echochartruse]

...  Examples include vestigial organs (the claim that in humans

Echochartruse's posts remind me of Asyncritus's

What did you actually want to say?..

if you would like me to expand on vestigial organs then you should first read these links.
http://isc.temple.edu/marino/embryology/parch98/parchdev.htm
http://www.embryology.ch/anglais/sdigestive/gesicht07.html#defpharynx34.

Science is evolving, what we thought was absolute and correct yesterday can be proved incorrect today.

Science has found that we dont have gills, that our appendix is usefull and so on.
That junk DNA is not junk.

If we sit on our theories and hold them in concrete, then science will stagnate.

[RD]

...  Examples include vestigial organs (the claim that in humans

Echochartruse's posts remind me of Asyncritus's

What did you actually want to say?

I was just pointing out that arguments very similar to your own had been put forward by a chap called Asyncritus in this thread.

[echochartruse]

I was just pointing out that arguments very similar to your own had been put forward by a chap called Asyncritus in this thread.

After reading his thread, I will agree with you. But I am certain there are more than one other person who is not bound in their thinking becasue of a theory that was once accepted.

As we see happening today, proof is found to contradict what we had accepted once as scientific fact and the more we question, the more we explore and the more we come to realise and discover the absolute truth.

Many decades ago in year 10 I constantly argued with my science teacher and only now am I able to prove that the science fact I was taught, that I could not accept, has now been disproved.
No one knows all the answers but that should not stop us from asking the questions.

Life on earth did not happen by chance, I don't believe anything does.
Science's explaination for life is that "it just happened" Randomly without reason.
Sorry I cant accept that either for the fact it is not very scientific.

[echochartruse]

I just read more of Asyncritus's posts and I would just like to add that even though I am not a religious person at all and I don't think there is a man called God that had a child called Jesus or any version of that story. I do actually believe that within every living thing on earth in our universe, there holds the key to its individual existence, which is much greater, more complex than "Random"

[Geezer]

now am I able to prove that the science fact I was taught, that I could not accept, has now been disproved.

Echo, what science do you believe has been disproved?

[BenV]

If we sit on our theories and hold them in concrete, then science will stagnate.

Life on earth did not happen by chance, I don't believe anything does.

Sitting on that hypothesis, are you?  Lots of things happen by chance, why would you have a problem with that?

At no point have we discussed the origins of life here.  Random mutation is merely one of the sources for variation, and evolution is far from random.  We've known for ages that "Junk" DNA is not just junk, we know transposons are important for organising the genome.

[RD]

Science's explaination for life is that "it just happened" Randomly without reason.

There was/is a reason for all the various forms of life : natural selection.

... more complex than "Random"

Complexity is not proof of design ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_Watchmaker

[echochartruse]

Definition RANDOM:- lacking any definite plan or order or purpose; governed by or depending on chance; "a random choice"

There was/is a reason for all the various forms of life : natural selection.

So we both agree it is not RANDOM

Sitting on that hypothesis, are you?  Lots of things happen by chance, why would you have a problem with that?

When someone formulates a hypothesis, he or she does so with the intention of testing it, just because a hypothesis is wrong does not necessarily mean that it is able to be tested at that point in time, just that enough information isn't available at that time.

I suppose I could be a sheep and just follow without questioning, believe what I am told, but that is not science.
Randomness, by chance, is surprisingly rare.

"Classical physics simply does not permit genuine randomness in the strict sense," says JQI Fellow Chris Monroe, who led the experimental team. "That is, the outcome of any classical physical process can ultimately be determined with enough information about initial conditions.

At no point have we discussed the origins of life here.

Correct that is not what we are discussing here.

I was just pointing out that arguments very similar to your own had been put forward by a chap called Asyncritus in this thread.

I was just defending myself as Asyncritus seems to have religious overtones.

Random mutation is merely one of the sources for variation, and evolution is far from random.

Correct then we must all agree that evolution is not RANDOM.

We've known for ages that "Junk" DNA is not just junk, we know transposons are important for organising the genome.

Unfortunately some of us have lived longer than ages and were taught differently in school.

Echo, what science do you believe has been disproved?

I was taught that there is junk DNA left over from our evolution through various species that is no longer need but still exists.

That brown eyes will always be dominant in offspring where one parent has brown and the other say blue eyes.

That we as a foetus have gills and our appendix has no use.

A mutation is a permanent change in the DNA sequence of a gene. Please tell me, is any change in DNA sequence permanent? If so wouldn’t this halt evolution?

I was told that evolution is not determined by our environment but ‘random mutation’

Does everyone here believe that evolution is based on random mutation?