Typhon

Do you even know anything about basic biology? Good gods man, viruses are simple by comparison to more complex organisms. I'm not making this up. Their composition, structure, and methods of reproduction are both "simple" and very ancient in origin. So are bacteria. This is a fact of biology and if you're ignorant of this, I don't know what you're even doing dipping your toes into the waters of evolutionary theory. Go learn some basic biology first, and then come back when you can talk about these things without making yourself look utterly foolish.

If I may ask, what exactly is your scientific background? I was willing to give you the benefit of doubt, but this admission on your part has caused me to reconsider this. You don't seem to know much about the subject on which you're trying to build a hypothesis.

It has very little to do with the size of viruses. While they may be small, it is not the basis on which we categorize them as "simple" organisms. Take picornaviruses for example, they are among the most simple of organisms. Composed of a modular protein shell and a short piece of RNA, they seek out and bind to a target cell, the RNA containing the information needed to hijack the cell's machinery and cause it to construct new viruses. Picornaviruses are some of the most important viruses in their impact on human health and welfare, despite their simplicity or perhaps, even because of it. Numbered among them is poliovirus, rhinovirus, and the virus that causes foot and mouth disease in livestock.

Next you'll be trying to argue that bacteria are "complex" compared to multicellular organisms like ourselves, despite the fact that they are procaryotic organisms with a cellular structure lacking an organized nucleus and nuclear membrane and consisting of a single strand of DNA (rather than containing their genetic information on several chromosomes).

Contend all you want, you're still wrong. I contend you're woefully ignorant of the basics of introductory life science, so I would say your stunning revelation that "everything was complex from the start" is not only patent fertilizer, but glaringly ignorant manure at that.

Aside from the fact you don't know your abcs of biology to begin with, where exactly have you come up with evidence for this "theory" which flies in the face of what we know about life and evolutionary processes?

.T.

[ August 07, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

Typhon

This is not "learning."

Antimicrobial resistance is well recorded and a well understood fact of biology,

Resistance to penicillin for example in some trains of staphylococci was identified almost immediately after the introduction of the drug and occurs today in as many as 80% of all strains of Staphylococcus aureus. On the other hand, Streptococcus pyogenes (Group A strep) have never fully developed resistance to the same drug and remains susceptible to this antibiotic for many types of strep infections. There is a wide variety of other organisms that are not nor have been susceptible to penicillin for example. This is not a case of one bacteria being "more intelligent" or "learning" while others do not, it is a matter of some organisms being susceptible to this particular antimicrobial while others are resistant, or partially resistant. Those in which resistance occurs, the use of antimicrobial drugs often promotes the growth of only those resistant strains or colonies, thus selecting for the resistance type or strain. Widespread use and improper application of antimicrobials have in turn produced more and more strains which are thus resistant.

This is not a matter of "learning" but a matter of structure. For example Gram-negative bacteria (e.g. Salmonella, Shigella, Bordetella pertussis, Yersinia pestis, Pseudomonas though notably not Neisseria gonorrhoeae) are inherently resistant to penicillin because their vulnerable cell wall is protected by an outer membrane that prevents permeation of the penicillin molecule.

.T.

[ August 08, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

scigirl

Ok, I want to know a couple of things:
1) What is the meaning behind picornaviruses, rotaviruses, and e bola?
2) What kind of designer would purposely create these organisms?
3) What kind of person would believe in a designer that would purposely create these organisms?

scigirl

davidm

What's the evidence for design? Most species seem badly put together. They seem minimally adapted to their circumstances. Then, after a lot of floundering around in search of food and sex partners over many generations, they go extinct. Why's that, if evolution was "designed?" What's the point? Was the designer incompetent, or a crackpot? Was God drunk when he drew up his plans, or is he just a sadist?

Evolution without purpose or design resolves these riddles. What we see is exactly what we'd expect from this sort of process.

Thiaoouba wrote:
Any one with a trace of intelligence would realize that 'laws' of physics are 'laws' due to design. You do not get a 'law' randomly - this is a contradiction and please, think about it, because it is important to realize that any law requires a design of the law first. "God does not play dice" - Albert Einstein.

All the evidence points to purposeless evolution. You realize you have the burden of proof to demonstrate otherwise? Are you aware that Einstein did not believe in a personal, creator God? Are you aware that you took Einstein's quote out of context? Do you know what the context was? Since Einstein did not believe that the laws of physics were due to design, are you saying that Einstein did not have a trace of intelligence?

Mad Kally, what's this stuff about the Thiaoouba Prophecy and a lime green eyeball shirt?

echidna

Thiaoouba, maybe your statements are the result of a simple high school education (if so I sympathise since they misguided me for quite some time as well). Viruses “learning” is only a metaphor to explain what appears to happen. Viruses clearly lack the structure to “learn” anything. But what they do possess is the genetic diversity so that as Sci_Fidelity points out, the virus population already contains a small resistant proportion. When the others die out, the virus replicates through this small surviving strain. While it appears that the virus has mutated in response, the true mechanism at work is quite different.

Similar for all other evolutionary processes.

There is no evidence for deliberate mutation in response to a threat.

Survival of the fittest = survival of the luckiest !!

HRG

The "laws of physics and chemistry" are our - often approximate - description of regularities and patterns we have observed in nature. If someone can be said to have "designed" Ohm's Law, it was Ohm.

Regards,
HRG.

HRG

You confuse prescriptive laws (like Hammurabi's) with descriptive laws; only the former require a designer. Don't worry, you are just repeating a confusion which is 2500 years old.

A "law of nature" is just our description of a regularity, pattern etc. we have observed in nature. The existence of regularities in nature can be explained - not uniquely - by the absence of intermeddling gods who might disturb them.

If you actually knew the context of this quote, you'd have realized that it is not about any divine origin of the laws of physics, but about the indeterminism inherent in quantum theories.

Regards,
HRG.

Oolon Colluphid

And anyway, it seems Einstein was wrong: if there were a god, he'd be having a hell of a time watching the whole damn crapshoot.

Mind you, if Thia knew anything about science, he'd not keep popping up like those things at funfairs -- you know, the peg you hit with a hammer to make the bell ring...

Oolon

Starboy

Hi Thiaoouba,

I think the reason you’re getting such a poor reception to your question is that you have come the wrong place.

1. If you want a scientific explanation of how life came to be as it is on the earth, then I think you have come to the correct place.

2. If you want a reason why life came to be as it is on the earth, nobody here can help you. Because:
--a. That is not the kind of question that would be considered by scientists.
--b. It is not the sort of thing that atheists think about.

Perhaps you should consider one of the philosophical or religious forums.

Starboy

Stephen T-B

He’ll correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the issue at the heart of Thiaoouba’s post is “Why life?” Or rather “How life?”
And because these questions seem to defy explanation, he thinks we should resort to the fall-back explanation that “goddit.”
What we do know, Thiaoouba, is that given the right circumstances, Life occurs, and that once Life has occurred, it continues. And it seems that that “continuation” thing is elemental to it. As elemental, for instance, as gravity is to the universe.
I take it that you cannot accept that gravity and Life, and everything else in the universe “happen” because they are bound to - in other words, that everything is linked to everything else; everything is part of everything else; that every teeny little bit of every single thing which physically exists implies the existence of every other teeny little bit of every single thing which physically exists - or ever will exist.
I take it that you cannot accept that there may be an infinite number of alternative universes all co-existing; that the Big Bang was an episode in a continuum which has no beginning and no end?
But why the difficulty? Your assertion that because the universe exists there must be a god to have brought it into existence is as sensible as asserting that the Universe is on a table in god’s living room.
And consider the question of Design.
It has been pointed out that things are designed for one of two reasons: to perform a function or to exist as a work of art.
If the universe is designed and isn’t a work of art, then it has a function.
Are you suggesting that its function was to provide a framework for your birth, death and judgement?
or do you think that to be a bit too ego-centric? Perhaps it exists as a framework for Humankind as a whole?
If so, what happens to it when humankind ceases to exist - as surely it will do. Does god wind the whole lot up and sit back and say: “That was interesting, while it lasted”?
The god hypothesis is, it turns out, deeply unsatisfactory. “Goddit” answers nothing because it raises questions which are unanswerable.
Science raises questions too, but at least it gives us a framework in which to look for answers.
Intelligent Design comes smack up against a brick wall. Science looks out across a vista of infinite dimensions.