Dear amhd,
First let me begin by stating what I know about evolution and where we came from. There is a theory that is led by a man named perry marshall, if you've never heard of him I recommend googling his name and checking out his website. His theory states that DNA is not only a code or information storage system, but one designed by a superintelligence. You see, if you take a sentence for example;

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

With one RANDOM mutation:

The quick brown fox jumped over theJlazy dog

Two:

The quick brown fox jumped overbtheJlazy dog

as you can tell a random mutation always causes a loss of information, so if DNA randomly mutated there would be much more diversity in species than what is seen today.

Taken with permission from cosmicfingerprints.com

"Proof that DNA was designed by a mind: (1) DNA is not merely a molecule with a pattern; it is a code, a language, and an information storage mechanism. (2) All codes we know the origin of are created by a conscious mind. (3) Therefore DNA was designed by a mind, and language and information are proof of the action of a Superintelligence.

We can explore five possible conclusions:


1) Humans designed DNA
2) Aliens designed DNA
3) DNA occurred randomly and spontaneously
4) There must be some undiscovered law of physics that creates information
5) DNA was Designed by a Superintelligence, i.e. God.

(1) requires time travel or infinite generations of humans. (2) could well be true but only pushes the question back in time. (3) may be a remote possibility, but it's not a scientific explanation in that it doesn't refer to a systematic, repeatable process. It's nothing more than an appeal to luck . (4) could be true but no one can form a testable hypothesis until someone observes a naturally occurring code. So the only systematic explanation that remains is (5) a theological one.

To the extent that scientific reasoning can prove anything, DNA is proof of a designer."

OK to add to this:

Ask yourself; what code do you know of that is random? None.

All codes are designed by intelligence.

Chaos theory states things like tornadoes being created or snowflakes because these are random events, but DNA is a code full of letters, characters, genes, words, sentences, paragraphs and chapters. '

So is DNA a pattern, or a code? A code.

So therefore DNA was designed by a higher being i.e. god.

Darwinism is wrong, YES natural selection is perfectly true as a theory, but the rest of the theory is wrong because darwinism doesn't work because randomness causes loss of information.

What do you believe/think?

(a) All codes we know the origin of are created by a conscious mind... (b) darwinism doesn't work because randomness causes loss of information.Hello C:

(a) Agreed. But, we don't know the origin of DNA, so we couldn't make the conclusions you do. (b) You SAY it causes a loss, but your little thing about the fox isn't proof. I SAY it just changes the information. What I say carries no more weight that what you say.

This is just Intelligent Design with a different name. It's still bunk.

excon

We are here by an act of God.That I believe.

Evolution of species has been occurring and is still . Evolution could be the steps needed to create the DNA that defines us.

The first amino acids that formed is from sea water ,soil and lighting coming together , which is the first step , and loosely could be translated as we started as sand and were molded into his image.

The vast differences in what is taught by science and what is taught by creationists. Grow smaller every day. The more we discover about the universe the necessity of intelligent design in it's creation is more apparent to those who study it

We were not even aware of the dark matter and energy that compose 75% of the universe. Until a few years ago.
If we missed something of that magnitude , how do we find the small details?

This is by no means anyone's serious attempt to combine the different beliefs.
Is is the product an exploration of altered states of perception .

Carl17 disagrees: It shows that RANDOM change, I.E. the darwinism theory is B.S.Hello again, Carl:

Dude! You ASKED for my theory, then you diss me for giving it? Do you even understand what PHILOSOPHY is? I think NOT. Clearly, you believe that your philosophy is right, and everybody else's is wrong. That's not philosophy. It's religious demagoguery DISGUISED as philosophy. You don't fool me.

excon

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

With one RANDOM mutation:

The quick brown fox jumped over theJlazy dog

Two:

The quick brown fox jumped overbtheJlazy dog

as you can tell a random mutation always causes a loss of information, so if DNA randomly mutated there would be much more diversity in species than what is seen today.

This premise is unfortunately incorrect. The information in genes is not closely analogous to an English sentence. More generally, changes in a sequence of nucleotide bases in the DNA are not all deleterious.

Here's a better analogy. You have a hand written recipe for making a cake from your great Aunt Betty. You decide to type the recipe into your computer, but you accidentally type the wrong amount of baking powder. The next time you make the cake it doesn't rise as much as it should have and you double check and realize your mistake.

You have already emailed the recipe to your cousin in Denver and you call him up to warn him to add the right amount of baking powder. But, to your surprise, he says he's already made the cake and it came out perfectly. You both realize that your essentially random mistake made it better suited to high altitude cooking, even though the altered recipe is worse at low altitude.

Also, in your example, if the first mutation was really deleterious, the individual with that mutation would not be able to reproduce, so there would be no next generation in which a second bad mutation could appear. If on the other hand, the first mutation did not prevent reproduction, then it is not a fatal mutation and might turn out to be useful in some unforeseen context.

(In evolution, everything is unforeseen.)

Excon,
In March, in another thread, Carl talked about evolution as if it was a done deal. People can change their minds. Plus it's my mission to shed light where there is darkness. :)


Happy 4th!

This premise is unfortunately incorrect. The information in genes is not closely analogous to an English sentence. More generally, changes in a sequence of nucleotide bases in the DNA are not all deleterious.

Here's a better analogy. You have a hand written recipe for making a cake from your great Aunt Betty. You decide to type the recipe into your computer, but you accidentally type the wrong amount of baking powder. The next time you make the cake it doesn't rise as much as it should have and you double check and realize your mistake.

You have already emailed the recipe to your cousin in Denver and you call him up to warn him to add the right amount of baking powder. But, to your surprise, he says he's already made the cake and it came out perfectly. You both realize that your essentially random mistake made it better suited to high altitude cooking, even though the altered recipe is worse at low altitude.


Hi Asking,

I don't have a problem with your 'baking powder' analogy. A new arrangement of 'ingredients' via natural selection is probably a suitable explanation for evolution. However, I have a problem with the evolution of consciousness as a natural process.

Access consciousness or consciousness of our own thought process would have been a great evolutionary advantage to humans in terms of adaptability and flexibility. This is especially true when we consider how physically inferior we are to other animals.

I cannot see how phenomenological consciousness is something that has evolved through natural selection. In fact one could even say it is detrimental to our species.

I am of course wanting to divide consciousness into 'access consciousness' and 'phenomenological consciousness'. As stated before access consciousness is about such things as focusing one's attention, reporting our mental states and deliberately controlling our behaviour. All of these things are well suited to a physical explanation.

Phenomenological consciousness is about the subjective nature of experience, or 'what it is like' to experience something. Phenomenological consciousness is not about the performance of function. It seems to me that is is more about a telos. The problem of phenomenological consciousness persists even when the science of evolution is done.

Finally, I wouldn't go along with the idea that phenomenological consciousness as a by-product of consciousness evolving. If it were a mere by- product then why do we take our thoughts so seriously?

From a biological point of view I would be interested to read your thoughts on the matter.


Regards

Tut

Hi Tut,
Just a quick note. I have discussed this idea with others here and I think what ends up being the issue is what I consider an insufficiently precise definition of consciousness. People mean different things by the word, and for a lot of people it's a sort of substitute soul--another way out for those with a tendency to dualism (mind body), which I reject.

The brain is poorly understood, but so is the gut (no joke), which has a lot of neurons and hormone receptors of its own. My point is that the mind is not seated in the brain like a king in his thrown. We are our bodies, not a thing apart from them.

I don't know of any logical argument against the evolution of consciousness, whatever it may be. There are certainly other animals that are aware of themselves. But of course, anyone can keep redefining consciousness to exclude this animal or that, as has been done with tool use for example.

When I was growing up, people still said that dogs and infants felt no pain. This has turned out to be wrong. Occams razor should lead one to assume that if another animal behaves as we do, it probably feels something similar even if we have no direct access to those feelings.

There's no question that we are different from other animals in a variety of ways, but so is an eagle different from a whale. And humans of 50,000 years ago, to whom we are virtually identical (aside bridges, planes, and skyscrapers), didn't seem so very different from other animals. A nondescript ape with unusually high intelligence and the ability to cook. Homo cocious.