We all know about the employee-of-the-month and the bunny-of-the-month. I just learned of a new one: the molecule-of-the-month. Check out this month’s centerfold at the RCSB Protean Data Bank.
One of the reasons Charles Darwin could propose his theory of evolution by mutation and natural selection as the explanation for the diversity of life was the assumption that less complex organisms were first, and that less complex means simpler. This suggests the tree of life, i.e., that simpler organisms are the ancestors of multiple more complex organisms, forever branching until we reach the most complex varieties of today. This train of thought was logical 150 years ago, because the cell was thought to be “simply” a blob of goo held together by a thin skin. Since one bag of goo seemed pretty much like another, new arrangements of the same goo bags could yield different animals. Right?
The one thing that has for sure evolved is our understanding of the goo. Today we estimate that the human body contains about 100,000 different molecules in its cells, and none of them are what we might call “simple.” As a matter of fact, the simplest of all viruses, are not simple either. Each one is a tiny machine part or tool with a specific function. That function is not only facilitated by the shape and size of the molecule, but also by the strength and positive and negative charges distributed about the molecule.
Today there seems to be no shortage of new discoveries of the complexity of life-related molecules, as evidenced by two molecules being featured for May, 2010, the month of this post. One is a virus that causes distemper in cats, parvoviruses; and the other is a repair molecule in humans, Mre11 Nuclease. The parvovirus neutralizes one cell in cats. With two modifications it can neutralize the same cell in dogs. Mre11 nuclease prevents mutation by repairing the ends of broked DNA strands. Both are pretty specific in function.
No life is made of goo. No life is simple. No explanation for it can be either.
Archive for May, 2010
Goo and the Origin of Life
Sunday, May 9th, 2010An Appendix about the Appendix
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010OK, so I usually don’t post a new blog the day after the last one. This one I have to. Discovery institute just published its audio blog, ID the Future, highlighting the appendix argument for Darwinian evolution. Being an appendectomy survivor, and having written on it here in AcademicFreedomBlog, AND now with personal experience to vouch for some of the discomforts we are learning to be associated with loss of the appendix, I must encourage you to listen.
Ridicule and Rabbit Trails
Saturday, May 1st, 2010Carlin Romano obscured his message with rabbit trails and sophist language, but the message is there and it is good. I can’t agree with everything he says in his review of Massimo Pigliucci’s Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science From Bunk in The Chronicle Review April 25, 2010, but I must agree with his main point. The article is entitled, ”Science Warriors’ Ego Trips”. His point of contention begins with that “warrior” idea:
“The problem with polemicists like Pigliucci is that a chasm has opened up between two groups that might loosely be distinguished as ‘philosophers of science’ and ‘science warriors.’ “
Romano defines philosophers of science as having varying viewpoints, and their debates are necessary for advancement of science. He defines science warriors as attaching those who view things differently in unscientific ways, so they instead shut down debate and therefore advancement of science. With that foundation, he takes the attack on ID as Exhibit A.
“Pigliucci similarly derides religious explanations on logical grounds when he should be content with rejecting such explanations as unproven. ‘As long as we do not venture to make hypotheses about who the designer is and why and how she operates,’ he writes, ‘there are no empirical constraints on the ‘theory’ at all. Anything goes, and therefore nothing holds, because a theory that ‘explains’ everything really explains nothing.’
Here, Pigliucci again mixes up what’s likely or provable with what’s logically possible or rational. The creation stories of traditional religions and scriptures do, in effect, offer hypotheses, or claims, about who the designer is—e.g., see the Bible. And believers sometimes put forth the existence of scriptures (think of them as “reports”) and a centuries-long chain of believers in them as a form of empirical evidence. Far from explaining nothing because it explains everything, such an explanation explains a lot by explaining everything. It just doesn’t explain it convincingly to a scientist with other evidentiary standards.”
Here Romano mixes up something himself. He conflates ID with creationism. ID in fact makes no claims about what the designer might be like, because it uses only scientific observations of the natural world to draw its conclusions. Creationism stands on Scripture—e.g., see the Bible. But Romano’s point is well taken. Creationism does have a place in knowledge, because it answers questions that science cannot touch (something that science warriors cannot seem to admit).
“A sensible person can side with scientists on what’s true, but not with Pigliucci on what’s rational and possible. Pigliucci occasionally recognizes that. Late in his book, he concedes that “nonscientific claims may be true and still not qualify as science.” But if that’s so, and we care about truth, why exalt science to the degree he does? If there’s really a heaven, and science can’t (yet?) detect it, so much the worse for science.
As an epigram to his chapter titled “From Superstition to Natural Philosophy,” Pigliucci quotes a line from Aristotle: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Science warriors such as Pigliucci, or Michael Ruse in his recent clash with other philosophers in []The Chronicle], should reflect on a related modern sense of “entertain.” One does not entertain a guest by mocking, deriding, and abusing the guest. Similarly, one does not entertain a thought or approach to knowledge by ridiculing it.”
Romano is right to call Pigliucci down for ridicule. Though he doesn’t personally buy the merits of ID, and apparently doesn’t even understand it, Romano defends ID’s right to be considered as a position of knowledge, as a true philosopher of science would. One in the article Romano abandons his dominant style to state his main point in simple words, which by contrast makes the point even more powerfully:
“Tone matters. And sarcasm is not science.”