One of the points I offered for God's existence is the fact that life itself shows the fingerprints of intelligence. In the debate, I argued:
In all of human existence, it has been readily understood that life comes from life, since at no time have humans ever observed anything else. And now, science has amassed even more evidence for the absolute uniqueness of living systems as non-random, information-bearing systems.Tomorrow, I will discuss Carrier's response to this line of argumentation.
Human beings have consistently recognized that highly specified information—from cave drawings to computer systems—are always the result of an intelligent mind. The identifying features of intelligence are:
Code-breakers in World War II and scientists who search for signs of extra-terrestrial life both use these criteria in separating what is natural and what is the sign of a mind a work.
- They are COMPLEX SYSTEMS
- They are SPECIFICALLY ARRANGED to perform a function
- They are HIGHLY CONTINGENT. In other words, there is nothing that forces the patterns to emerge as they do.
Now, when we look inside living cells, we see that they exhibit the same marks of intelligence. For example some of the simplest bacteria have a DNA molecule which is about 4,000,000 nucleotides long. These nucleotides need to be in just the right order or the bacteria could not live. In fact, Gustaf Arrhenius states that there are more possible nucleotide sequences than there are atoms in the universe. Yet, these are ordered perfectly in living systems to build the proteins necessary for life.
Secondly, amino acids, the workhorses that build proteins, are selected perfectly, too. Amino acids are what are known as "handed," that is they occur in two shapes that mirror each other like a left and right hand. Each of these types is equally distributed in nature: the odds of each are 50% and they will bond to the RNA molecule equally well. But ALL biological proteins must use ONLY left handed amino acids for life to exist. So, how can you have an RNA molecule form randomly but only select the left-handed acids? Given that bacteria are, for e.g., 4 million nucleotides long, how can they assemble by chance to use only left-handed acids?
These and other reasons are why MIT mathematician Murray Eden has stated that the chance emergence of life from non-life is impossible. Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA, also famously stated "the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle." DNA and molecular systems required for life are specific and complex enough to rule out chance. And since complex systems that are specific are also a sign of an intelligent mind, it is reasonable to hold that "intelligence" is responsible for life.
RE: "These and other reasons are why MIT mathematician Murray Eden has stated that the chance emergence of life from non-life is impossible. "
ReplyDeleteThisis a faulty statment and premise, upon which you use to build conclusions. Fact is, no one can calculate the odds of an unknown process. It may turn out to be very likely for life to arise. There are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and hundreds of billions of galaxies... life could be common, we don't know. It is simply incorrect to say the odds are low or high; it is unknown.
Darwin himself could only see the cell as a blob with the technology available to him. Since that time we know more and more about the cell and more and more it looks doubtful life could ever arise by itself. To say we don't know is a cop out.
DeleteSee:
ReplyDeletehttp://networkedblogs.com/LmMaT
BONDING: You need 99 peptide bonds between the 100 amino acids. The odds of getting a peptide bond is 50%. The probability of building a chain of one hundred amino acids in which all linkages involve peptide bonds is roughly (1/2)^99 or 1 chance in 10^30.
CHIRALITY: You need 100 left-handed amino acids. The odds of getting a left-handed amino acid is 50%. The probability of attaining at random only L–amino acids in a hypothetical peptide chain one hundred amino acids long is (1/2)^100 or again roughly 1 chance in 10^30.
SEQUENCE: You need to choose the correct amino acid for each of the 100 links. The odds of getting the right one are 1 in 20. Even if you allow for some variation, the odds of getting a functional sequence is (1/20)^100 or 1 in 10^65.
The final probability of getting a functional protein composed of 100 amino acids is 1 in 10^125.
Even if you fill the universe with pre-biotic soup, and react amino acids at Planck time (very fast!) for 14 billion years, you are probably not going to get even 1 such protein. And you need at least 100 of them for minimal life functions, plus DNA and RNA.