I'd like to offer up
www.talkdesign.org...
as a website that deals with supposed 'design science' from a scientific perspective.
as does this:
www.talkreason.org...
Rren
The watchmaker Arguement, originally from William Paley in 18th century, basically says: as a watch needs a maker, so nature does also.
Darwin's ideas, however, seem to specifically refute this. Adaptation via natural selection acting upon variation seems to allow 'design',
solutions to 'problems'.
Are these seemingly designed mechanisms believed to have been apart of the original forms of life soon after abiogenesis, and how is this
explained in evolutionary theory.
As far as I understand it, no. " RNA polymerase II, thioredoxin reductase (from E. coli), and chloroplast F1-F0 ATPase" and such are not thought to
have been formed in the abiogenesis event. They are not thought to be part of the Ur-ganism.
However, I would state that, science does not have any sort of real answer for what the mechanism of abiogenesis is. It doesn't have very clear
ideas about it, and the field is wide open. I
don't think that man's current inability to get at an answer means that man must default to
miracles tho.
Goes back to my earlier question how do we get these structures via evolution if the simpler structures they evolved from could not have been
functional..
Thats just the point tho. Simpy because we are ignorant of the use of the earlier structures does not mean that they had no function. In darwin's
day, a simpler eye was thought of as being immpossible. Yet today, there are series of 'parts' of eyes that are functional, from slight clumps of
proteins that are barely light sensative, to varyingly complex eyes. Darwin wasn't being unscientific when he made his hypothesis that the eye could
form from simpler structures (regardless of the fact that he ultimately was correct), modern man, similarly, isn't being unscientific by
hypothesizing about abiogenesis.
See
this succinct response, and
this one for a related topic.
I do have a problem understanding this to be honest, it still seems to imply that these organisms/cells understand their environment and adapt as if
they were programmed(for lack of a better word) to do so
Consider it this way. Darwin made some observations.
- Populations of Organisms are Variable
- Traits are inheritable
- There is are more individuals born each generation than can survive to reproduction
Given that, and given that some individuals will be better suited to their environment than other members of the same population, you will have
natural selection.
IE, consider a population of finches on an island (the classic example). Some members of the species have slightly smaller beaks, others have thicker
beaks, others have more crooked, thinner, longer, shorter, more ornate, more edged, sharper, blunter, beaks. The population is variable. Birds with
big beaks tend to produce birdlings with big beaks, etc. There is a drought for a long while, and the plants that survive have seeds with thick
shells to protect them. If you are a finch with a thick big beak, you can crack the shells and eat. Other members of your population with slightly
less big and thick beaks can, of course, survive too, but
you do better, you get more food easier. You produce lots of birdlings, all with
thick big beaks, the other guys produce less birdlings.
Now the new generation looks more like you, there are more big beaked birds. So now we have a population of birds that in general have big beaks.
But while traits are inheritable, they are also variable in the population. So this later population of finches with big beaks is going to vary.
Some are going to, by chance and mutation, have smaller beaks. Others are going to, for the same reason, have bigger beaks. There's still a
drought, so now the process repeats, the ones with the bigger beaks do better, produce more offspring, and the future generation has lots of members
that have
even bigger beaks.
Needing to crack thick strong seed-shells is the selection. The random variation in the population is from mutation and inheritance. Selection
'acts' on variation, to produce adaptation. The adaptation is the unusually big, thick, strong beaks. Thats evolution.
Obviously, there's lots of stuff that can result in success in such a situation. Having more muscles in teh jaw, more reinforced bones in he skull
to anchor the jaw muscles. Having ridges on the beak to better crack the nuts. Anything. All of them can be 'selected' at once. Eventually, the
finches can become so different, so bizzare, that they are a different species.
So natural selection, acting on variation, is the mechanism by which adaptations are formed.
This, btw, if I am thinking correctly, is 'anagenesis', change within a lineage, where the whole species changes. If, say, the species was spread
over a bunch of islands, and only one island was having a drought and this process played out, then much of the original species would be unchanged,
and it wouldn't be anagenesis.
How long after abiogenesis do we think that these things became so complex(the protein structures resembling machine parts), and essentially
setient?
I'm sure a lot of people would like some answers to that, not the least of which being the people researching it! I don't think it has anything to
do with sentience tho.