Posted on 03/23/2011 1:51:59 AM PDT by AdmSmith
The reanalysis of a 1958 experiment suggests that volcanic eruptions may have spawned the amino acids that contributed to the rise of life on earth
Scientific debates don't get much hotter than the one surrounding the origin of organic molecules at the dawn of life on Earth. New findings, based on a reanalysis of a 50-year-old experiment, suggests that ancient volcanic activity was the source of the very first amino acids.
In the 1950s, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey of the University of Chicago performed a series of "spark discharge" experiments, in which the researchers applied electrical sparks-- meant to simulate lightning -- to a mixture of gases in steam-filled flasks. As the heat inside the flasks rose and the sparks flew, solids were produced and were captured in vials that could be stored for later analysis. Amino acids were formed in these reactions and they provided support for Miller's hypothesis that organic molecules could be formed from inorganic gases.
(Excerpt) Read more at the-scientist.com ...
No, it doesn't exist, because datum(data) is(are) an() abstraction(s). Where does a kilogram come from? Or the color red? Or 98.6 degrees fahrenheit?
Then "information" is no less an abstraction. KG, red, and degrees farenheight are labels used to quantify observations. The mass of an object, the wavelength of light it reflects, or it's thermal radiation are still there, whether they were observed, measured, and labeled or not.
I think that is what is being asserted. I also think that quantum theorists will argue with your last statement, "meow".
Quantum theory is a different context, and forcing those terms into this context is sophistry. Information without data is dogma.
Information Science has proven that any information must come from a source with more information.
Well, now is your opportunity to back up your claims. I especially enjoy the irony of your last statement. I repeat my last posting in different words, in that, information and data are being established as requiring a mind.(IE they are abstractions)
The abastractions are in the mind of the observer, so "information" is not an intrinsic property.
Voila! A mind is required.
I never claimed otherwise. It's axiomatic that a mind is required. The mendacity is in the implication that it must have been some "mind" external to the observer.
Well here again is your chance to prove that statement(I have never observed my great-grandfather). And you leave out that data are also abstractions.
Very well. I'll offer as proof the observation that when you say "a mind is required" for there to be information, you will NEVER volunteer that the "mind" in question is the mind of the person who looked at it and decided it was "information".
What sort of proof is that? I repeat I have never observed my great-grandfather.
Plus your "definition" of information is pretty useless. Its seems a conclusion using your premise is that outside of a specific mind being discussed there is no information. And it would seem that this is not information
There is no information there unless there is a mind that can see it and make sense of it.
Similarly, there is no “information” in DNA absent a ribosome and tRNAs that can “decode” and “translate” an otherwise meaningless sequence of nucleic acids into a functional sequence of amino acids.
The only definition of "information" in play here is that it is an abstraction, which you've already agreed to. It is a mental construct, and it is "information" within any mind that can comprehend it and use it to make that construction. Before that happened, it was not "information".
What is the significance of you never having observed your great-grandfather?
Here is the important part: only a mind can produce those properties. They can not be accounted for by chemistry, nor physics...there is no straight line path from matter to information. This is Polanyi's Impossibility.
We've been discussing precisely that. Once it is understood that information is an abstraction, it is axiomatic that only a mind can produce it.
The conversation started with an assertion that the science of studying things like DNA is different than a science like metallurgy, because the molecular structure of DNA "contains information" while the the molecular structure of something like a metal alloy does not.
What say you?
Here is the mystery: The sequence of nucleotides (each triplet being called a codon) is specific to a protein. So one codon equates to one of twenty amino acids...and just that amino acid. There are actually 64 possible combinations. Where is the "codon lexicon"????? Where is the association between a specific codon and a specific amino acid recorded? What table exists to clarify which is which?
There is only one possible explanation for this "codon lexicon" - intelligence; a mind. Meaning is an abstraction that cannot be a property of the "stuff" which the nucleotides are made of...it is not the product of chemical activity, nor of the physics...it can only come from a mind.
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