The ID "debate" - Dover, US - Just curious, but... (Sep/28/2005 )

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Besides the Koran is an offshoot of the Bible so has many similarities.
I think there might be one or two Moslems who might disagree with you, not to mention some Christians... wink.gif
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I thought this was a fact! They are the core Abrahamic religions - Judaism is recognised as the first 'mainstream' montheistic religion, Christianity followed (I have heard it referred to as the lazy mans Judaism (I stress that this is not what I think, I do find it funny)) then Islam (a response to Christianity).

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The only stupid questions are the ones that aren't asked, and I think the same often applies to speculative statements. Possible, but I really, really doubt it. I mean, if this was true, the first question would have to be "What was the very first protein?"
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Great! Why a protein - why not rna? rna->dna->rna - rna->dna->protein. It is generally accepted that proteins didn't come first and nor did DNA, it was an RNA world! DNA is thermodynamically more stable than DNA and acts as an information store - would it require less energy to keep cycling RNAs or have a constant information store?

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That's a fair cop. I go from the Bible, because I'm a Christian, and as far as I'm aware, the majority of arguments over the origins of the universe, and then of life, and certainly the arguments over ID are arguments over the biblical account.
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If ID is a Christian argument, one without any evidence (for ID or for the Christian god) why should it be taught in schools as an alternative to evolution - not a 'theory' as the ID fans would have you believe? There was an ID argument in Turkey driven by followers of the Islamic faith... not on the same scale as the ID argument we have in the UK or, as far as I am aware, the USA - with the Discovery institute and all.

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And as a scientist, I'm not a really big fan of speculation.
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Yet by being a Christian you are speculating that there is a god! Also, as you are not allowed to worship false gods, doesn't that mean that you think all other beliefs are wrong? If not, aren't you heading to hell with atheists/agnostics (like myself)? I think the time-space argument is weak to be honest.

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my intended point was that only some homologues have been found.
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Well then, we have shown that the ID hypothesis is incorrect... we don't need a full house.


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No, surely, if we did the experiment in vivo, we'd find that the primary sequence would either direct the fold to just one topology, or else the protein would be misfolded and broken down by the cell, or else turned into an inclusion body. It's an essential part of the central dogma. If it isn't, then it should be.
As to the question of why the intermediates can't have been lost, I have to admit ignorance. I hope to have a more informed idea once I have found out the complete list of components.
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Different sequences do adopt the same folds. We know that it isn't just sequence that influences fold - if it was that simple my PhD would have been so much easier


Just feel that I should point out: I don't have a problem with religion - people have the right to believe. I am not being aggressive - I find these discussions interesting. I have had a beer[s] and this post may not make sense to a normal/sober person

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Ah, I see why I couldn't find much about canon and Trent in my brief searches. Still doesn't explain how they decided on which were canonical or not. I should really read up on my religious history as it is quite interesting.



Indeed they would, many a war has been fought over these issues. However, I do have to say that even Jesus is in the Koran, just as a prophet not as the messiah. Also included are Adam, the fall of Satan, the parting of the waters with moses, the golden calf, and many others. To be sure, it is mostly old testament, but I would call that fairly similar, almost as similar as the Torah is to the old testament.

My point exactly, what came before the big bang? In this case the presence of anything can only be speculative, so the "maybe" in my earlier answer is purely speculative. God is as good an explanation as anything.

Anyway, to get back on topic a bit...

My main issue with ID is that it is a thinly veiled attempt to get the Christian style creation myth into the scientific classroom, when it is neither scientific nor a testable theory and completely ignores other religions which should be equally valid (e.g. Brahma's creation of the world, or for that matter Norse, Greek, Egyptian, Native American creation myths etc.), although many proponents of ID say that they are open to other religions. I do have to say that a lot of these myths are fairly similar in that before the creation of the heavens and the earth, there was water and darkness.



Sure, this is possible. But at some point it would have had to become protein. DNA and RNA are no more than information holders in our knowledge of biology so far and cannot form the complex structures that proteins can due to the natural tendency to coil and the lack of available inter-base binding sites once the bases are paired. Sugar based compounds in chain are commonly quite stable and aside from the branches cannot usually from crosslinks etc. DNA and RNA also require protein to consistently replicate in any meaningful way. It still begs the question what was the first "gene" that all others evolved from?



The same sequence can also adopt different folds depending on the conditions in which the protein is formed - pH, ionic concentrations, temperature etc.

Keep it up guys, this is a good debate!

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Although all three religions are Abrahamic in some way, they diverge greatly. Judaism and Christianity follow the lineage of Isaac, while Islam follows that of Ishmael. It doesn't take long for the two stream to become absolutely different. Then, Christianity's claims include the big one that it is the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Jewish Bible. Finally, I have personally never heard of Islam as being a response to Christianity. Also, from the reading I have done on the subject, there are so few points of similarity between the Bible and the Koran, and between Christianity and Islam, the two books and the two religions cannot be said to have anything substantial in common.

OK, let's take the argument back to the level of RNA, the question then becomes "Which was the first biologically relevant/functional RNA?". NB: This is not me having a go at you or your idea..... Is your suggestion that RNA diverged into a number of ribozymes and other ribo-compounds, which then independently were changed first into DNA-based molecules, and finally protein-based enzymes and structural factors, or did the change from RNA to DNA to protein happen before the diversification of functions? It seems to me that the simplest solution does not have RNA as a component of early life (and of course, it is not possible to show a real billion-year-old, functional RNA molecule that can do anything, so the whole field is conjecture), other than (maybe) as an information store (but what would read the information? More RNA? But how would it be able to do anything?)


I think the Turkish ID story is a bit of "copycat" theorising, carried out by some Islamic scholars to show that Islam is also grappling with the interface between science and the religion. Without meaning to sound superior, I think that Islamic science has struggled to escape from the 16th century, let alone engage with the 21st century, something the Christian West was able to do a while ago. Standing on the outside, I fear that many good Islamic scientists have been held back by their cultural settings, but I am prepared to be corrected (nicely, please, I don't mean any offence ...).

1) Actually, no. My faith in God is not at all speculative, because it is based in an historical person, who did historical things, that were recorded as history. The Biblical faith in God finds its foundation in the historical person of Jesus, in what he said, and did, in his death and resurrection. The "proof" for the existence of God stands or falls on the person of Jesus, and in particular on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead (not just a resuscitation, as some would say, not the reanimation of a zombie, as other skeptics have said, but a resurrection).
2) It is a hard thing to say (because it will offend many people, but I cannot avoid the truth), but, yes, holding a Biblical Christian perspective means that I reject all other views, and consider them wrong. I reject the notion that "all roads lead up the mountain", because all of the world's religions hold mutually exclusive truths. There are only two logically tenable positions: either all religions are false, or all religions but one are false.


Actually, you do need to be able to explain all of the components of the complex. Where did they come from? If there are some that have no homologs, you need to be able to show how they appeared without precedent in the genome. Are there examples of genes being stitched together to make one of these components? Not that I'm aware. How else could a gene just appear? It seems to me that the "weak" argument is the one that says the original genes disappeared, or that we just haven't found them yet.


Yes, but the whole issue here is when the same sequence adopts different folds, and can carry out a different function using that different fold.

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Right here I go again ...

Actually, yes. RNA can process RNA - catalytic RNA! Sugars first anyone On a note - pubmed for papers like 'RNA world & Taylor'. Again we are guessing - but we have some, albeit rudimentary evidence - not pure speculation "god did it"



Maybe Jesus was a real person, I am willing to concede that. What I am not willing to accept is that he was anything other than a normal person - perhaps a good conman? (we cant go see magicians read peoples minds and influence their behavior). We know that the bible was not written at the time this individual was alive, in fact the books were written some years/decades later. There was no immaculate birth, no coming back to life these concept are crazy, as are those that speak to god (schizophrenia anyone !!! </being a dick>). The proof of God DOESN'T STAND OR FALL ON THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS - again you assume that your god is the correct one! - I really don't know how to respond to this! The bible is not a historically accurate article - come on.

No you don't - by demonstrating that one gene has homologs, you are doing the same as finding a rabbit in the Jurassic period - double standards? . Simply not knowing or stating that we haven't found it is better than saying "I don't know therefore God did it". Using God attempts to close the argument - how many other things have been ascribed to god only to be found out later - if you want to use 'god' as a place-holder: fine. I suspect we could go around like this for some time



No it isn't ... no really. We don't know - not god, damn it ... it's an easy write-off. Besides, I would find it easier to accept that we are living in a computer simulation or were placed here by aliens (not like the Alien vs Predator plot). I am amazed!

Under different pH, temp etc the fold changes - so too can function.



Naturally, I would say the exact opposite.



I wonder if it is more significant that those held back by Christianity and the failure to accept evolution as fact. I want to point out that my religious friends have less of problem with evolution than the ones that express no faith-based bias - by this, I mean that they all accept that evolution is a 'real' thing and ID is for muppets!

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ID is a way to get the Christian god into science class on a back of an idea that has no scientific merit. Even if similar ideas were proposed by Islamic or Jewish camps time should not be set aside to promote ID as a real alternative to evolution - a scientific theory for which there is lots of evidence. ID is not falsifiable and therefore can't be considered a scientific theory.

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Have you chaps (assumption) joined the bioforum radio over at last.fm - if not, please do.

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Islam has a long history of advancing science (Arabic numerals, concept of zero, much engineering, a few other common examples that I can't think of right now), and indeed sponsors the questioning of the world about us. However, the scholars are all part of the Koranic priesthood and universities, so the interpretations are largely based around religion. Of course christianity also has a history of cultivating scientists, but only where those fitted in with the current christian interpretation of the world. Copernicus and Gallileo were both excommunicated from the church for their heretical views. Having said that much of the geology, botany and zoology of the 18th and 19th century was performed by the village priests as they were an educated class with the time and money to undertake such work.




Actually, being placed here by aliens or in a computer simulation are totally analogous to saying that God did it. Anyway, I was saying that I don't know how the universe started, just that God was one possibility. Personally I lean towards the collapsing and re-expanding universe theory, though that is currently out of favour with the physicists at the moment.

Zigackly, you're ferpectly right (bonus points if you get the quotation). I do believe that creationism should be mentioned (briefly and none of this ID crap, just put things plainly) in science class though, not as a scientific theory, but as a non-verifiable theory/belief and hence non-scientific and put beside the evidence for evolution so that students can compare between science and belief.


Sorry, shouldn't stream stuff at work. Besides, couldn't find bioforum radio on the site!

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Sorry, but I'm not really sure how rabbits in the Jurassic has anything to do with anything. All I want to know is how did the proteins without homologs come to be? They seem to go against the well-established rules of evolutionary theory (unless I have missed something fundamental). The reason I think that finding the homologs (or perhaps the antecedents) is important is because they are the basis of ID's strongest argument for design. This seems to me to be the most obvious point of attack against ID. If a scientifically reasoned argument can be made for their existence, ID is totally up the creek. The statement that the IDers simply invoke God to kill off the debate also works against any evolutionist who simply invokes the "we haven't found the homologs yet" argument, especially if they don't get off their proverbial backside and do the experiment.

That is interesting: do you have some references to chase up? What examples are there of proteins that fold under physiological conditions to a different fold and carry out a different function?

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The issue is that we have found some of the homologs = proof!. Why do we need to find them all, surely this evidence is enough to say that evolution is a reality? Why must science/evolutionary theory prove absolutely everything before it will be accepted as a truth?

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Swanny,

I would suggest that you carefully read and try to understand this very very carefully; Just being a scientist does not mean one knows what science really is and how it works. No offense!

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Interesting paper. I didn't have to work too hard to understand it (unless I'm being particularly thick, Popper was quite clear in his thoughts.) How do you see it relates to the thread? It is interesting that Popper referred to arguments that are not scientific yet, but which originate from myths (a term that has a very broad range of meanings, depending on the context and field of learning); perhaps the concept of intelligent design might fall into that category.

The paper led me to think of a few other question: Does employing the scientific method, as Popper defines it (i.e., the ability to falsify the theory), make an investigation scientific? I don't think so, otherwise economics, psychology and a few other fields of study would be in the science faculties, rather than where they rightly belong. Does that therefore mean that the use of the term "science" has become too common, and consequently diluted? Are there realistic borders, as it were, around what can be called science, and other questions that can only be investigated following the scientific (empirical, experimental, testable) method without being "science"? Do we say that if it isn't chemistry, biology or physics, it can't be called science?

Just playing devil's advocate...

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Sure. Any investigation can be scientific. Science- as we commonly understand (biology,chem,phy..) routinely employs 'scientific' method, but it can be employed everywhere, for example in religious issues. 'There is a God' is a hypothesis. And it can be investigated as the tools become available in future, but as of now, we do not have a way to falsify it, and so it remains a hypothesis, and can not be a scientific theory. We have tools to falsify Gravity (observing a single apple defying it on its own), yet we can not do so, and so Gravity enjoys the status of a scientific theory. Same is with the Evolution theory: With a single human skeleton from the Dinosaur era, the current Evolution theory can be falsified, and so Evolution remains a scientific theory.

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