The Future of Biology: Reverse Engineering

Creation-Evolution Headlines ^ | 3/14/05 | Staff

[Paloma_55]

You gotta be careful, though, to distinguish between the words "reverse engineer," which were chosen by the author; and the actual phenomena that are being investigated. It may be that the phenomena were in fact the result of a design effort, or it may not. The words used to describe their work have no bearing on what they're actually doing.

Yea. That's true. When analyzing, complex, interactive systems with multiple interleaved control loops, it might get hard to figure out how such a thing could have evolved and thus, just assume that it was engineered.

[Aquinasfan]

“The hallmark of a good feedback control design is a resulting closed loop system that is stable and robust to modeling errors and parameter variation in the plant” [i.e., the system],

So I guess the control systems observed in cells arose by chance, just as the control systems in plants (i.e., engineered systems).

[Aquinasfan]

It's not supposed to be Tinkerbell, Odin, or the Invisible Pink Unicorn (pbuh), although many silly people all over the world - myself included - claim that these alternatives are all equally likely.

It's more likely that the Designer of the Universe is also the Prime Mover, First Efficient Cause, Perfect Being and Perfect Will.

[r9etb]

If we can't discern random events from design, how can we claim that there are indeed inherently random or designed events?

Good question. I think the answer is that we probably can tell the difference, at least some of the time.

We can easily recognize human-manufactured things, for instance ... even if you find them off in the middle of nowhere, and even if you don't know what they are for. Perhaps we have enough experience with such things that we can recognize the hallmarks of human handiwork.... And perhaps as we become more able to manipulate things at the cellular level and below, we can begin to recognize design (or not) there, too. I think the fundamental requirement would be to gain an understanding of the processes required for a particular design.

Perhaps the same question could be posed to the SETI folks: how would they infer that a signal came from an intelligent source? Seems to me that the problems are have a lot of similarities.

[frgoff]

Satan, Eve, and ultimately Adam all wanted something that they could not have... to be like God.

It's amazing the parts of the Bible people don't read.

And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil:...

Gen 3:22

[Elsie]

And the Unitarians miss the US part!

[Elsie]

...many silly people all over the world - myself included - claim that these alternatives are all equally likely.

As long as you realize it's just a CLAIM....

[TexasGreg]

PING

[betty boop]

Darwinistas, your revolution has failed. Get out of the way, or get with the program. We don’t need your tall tales and unworkable utopian dreams any more.

Gee. I think we could have done very well without that "editorial." What does it have to do with science?

Thanks for the interesting post, Michael!

[MEGoody]

Hey, if you want to believe the an intelligent invisible pink unicorn created everything, that's up to you.

Seems more plausible to me than to believe that life came from lifelessness all by itself.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your insight!

Gee. I think we could have done very well without that "editorial."

Indeed, it is just those kinds of unnecessary condemnations which reflect poorly on the speaker (whichever side he is on). We read something like that in Hawking's lecture on imaginery time where he took several swipes at young earth creationists which were completely unnecessary and detracted from his material. Ditto for Pinker. But it is never right to respond "in kind" for something which was wrong to begin with.

IMHO, the general public is always "turned off" by bickering - thus, the first side to master the diplomacy always has the upper hand.

[Elsie]

Well, as an agnostic and a scientist, I try to be clear about what's supported with evidence and observation, and what isn't. I'm simply not sure about creation myths in the same way that I'm sure about most well-established scientific results.

I can't fault this reasoning.

;^)

Good luck with the evidence search.....

[Elsie]

...which reflect poorly on the speaker (whichever side he is on).

AMEN!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your agreement!

[b_sharp]

Very well stated and appropriate.

BTW Thanks for the ping.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your agreement!

[betty boop]

At a gross level the idea of a designer is inherently plausible -- we as humans can understand how a designer might have come up with the things we can observe. At finer levels one can also see how randomness could play a role in the process. We can also understand ways in which randomness and design could both play roles in what we see. The "reverse engineering" aspects of this article are addressing that basic point.

Great insight, r9etb. I certainly agree with you that randomness has a role to play in the Universe. Were that not the case, then the Universe would be utterly determined, “frozen”; and free will (and individual atomic and biological collective degrees of freedom) would have no meaning and no role.

There is some very interesting work being done in Hungary right now (and elsewhere) on a reconceptualization of the role of thermodynamic entropy in living systems. As I understand it, in physical objects (i.e., non-living systems) it is entropy that characterizes the number of possible states the physical object could be in at any particular time. In other words, entropy represents a probability distribution (i.e., a “random set”) from which all real-world processes are realized or become possible at any given time. Prof. Kaitalin Martinas and Dr. Attila Grandpierre have suggested that living systems require very high rates of entropy continuously. In the case of living organisms, Grandpierre introduces an entropic measure of Gibbs free energy and points out that it may contribute to the generation of “biologically possible” states. In short, he argues the relatively high value of entropy in living systems enhances the ability of living matter to represent information.

And of course, information is not a "random" thing in itself; but according to Grandpierre's concept, informative transactions in living systems require randomness -- an astronomically large set of possibilities -- in order for "successful communication" that "reduces uncertainty in the receiver moving from a before-state to an after-state," in Shannon information terms.

[r9etb]

Dr. Attila Grandpierre

With a name like that, he oughta be a French porn star... ;-)