If you found E=mc2 in DNA would you believe

Lux
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If you found E=mc2 in DNA would you believe

"Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning..." -CS Lewis


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If this article is about

If this article is about pure interest, then cool. If it is about underming evolution, then I'll take the challenge: 

You could have just posted the article straight from the actual site of the article, instead of having to waste valuble nanoseconds on Dembski's blog. Not that it matters...I havent taken him seriously since...well never.

At any rate, this article is about scientists using DNA to store information they inputted. This is revolutionary but unsuprising. DNA has been suggested as an excellent storage medium. I wrote a five part essay about evolutionary micromechanisms titled  The Biochemistry behind the Genes and From Webs to Legs: The Magic of Homeobox flow, and Into the Proteome, and How to Build the Body from Genes, and finally Crossing the River out of Eden. In the first one, I wrote about genetic information, let me see if I can find a peice. Well, here is a piece which I posted in reply to this thread which details the evolution of genetic information.

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/sapient/atheist_vs_theist/6846 

 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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Lux

Lux wrote:

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/if-you-found-emc2-in-dna-would-you-believe-in-id/

please see article about what scientists in Japan have done.

Believe that japanese scientists implanted it there as the article states? Why, yes.

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This is just junk

This is just junk science.

This is just star trek crap claiming, "If there is a painting there must be a painter"

I'm supposed to be impressed because some Japanese person has deluded themselves?

Ok, lets for a second take their position.

"It could be that someone out there incoded things here"

Might as well become a Scientologist because that is the same crap.

And if you buy this junk, even if I baught it, would not support the God of the bible because that is not what this link is attempting to support. 

If you are going to argue your deity then focus on your deity and stop trying to use claims other people make about cause that are completely dissilalure and unrelated to your version.

Even if I baught their version, which I dont, it in no way resembiles the claims of the bible.

If you are going to buy these claims, then you need to discard your claims and adapt their claims. 

 

 

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This is just junk

This is just junk science.

Actually, the science behind what they did was very impressive. They managed to insert information directly into the encoded genetic material of DNA, representing Einsteinian mathematics in terms of Cytosine, Guanine, Uracil and Adenine. Fascinating.

I'm supposed to be impressed because some Japanese person has deluded themselves?

The Japanese scientists themselves only reported what they had found. It was siezed by Dembski and his idiots as an example of Intelligent Design.

 "It could be that someone out there incoded things here"

That was not their position. They only demonstrated it was possible. Anyway, we already know about the high information capacity of DNA. Only an idiot could deny it.

 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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I was in a rush when I

I was in a rush when I wrote that post, let me correct myself here.

Let me correct my post here.

Whatever these people at this site are claiming, is completly dissimailer that what this Christian is trying to prove.

It is a bait and switch 3 card monty.

These people are not trying to prove a disimbodied brain anywhere near the hocus pockus bearded man in the sky claims of the Christian bible.

He is trying to turn this site into a justification for his mythology.

If he is equating a similarity that they too are trying to argue a comic book character then they would also be trying to justify myth.

That is not what they are doing. I ment to say that if that were the case then they would be deluding themselves as well.

His attempt goes something like this,

"Hey, they believe in ID so therefor my Christian god exists"

That is NOT what they are trying to demonstrate.

If someone wants to say that it is possible for biological cabon based life to be replicated, that is science, not magic "Poof" hocus pocus like making a jet instantaniously dissapear.

If someone wants to say that a carbon based life form can be embeded in a comet or astoroid that travels over long period of time to hit another planet, that is still not what Genisis discribes.

"Little green men" theory is not what this site seems to speculate about and even if it was, it is still not anywhere similure to the disimbodied sky daddy that pulls the rabbit(adam) out of a hat(dirt).

He is trying to claim that this site is using the same "watchmaker" argument. And even if it was, which it is not, this site does not say, "We are attempting to prove the God of Jesus"

Christians are famous for basterdizing the statements of others to twist them to justify their myth. That is what he is doing. 

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It is funny how Christian

It is funny how Christian appologists, and that is what this site is hide the fact that they are Christians. These people are lobbiests and not interested in giving up debunked mythology.

http://www.uncommondescent.com/about Here is the following from their site that shows their true intent.

Quote:
Crandaddy

Quote:
Crandaddy is an old high school nickname of a philosopher-in-training from Central Arkansas whose primary interests with regard to ID include its significance in arguments regarding the justification of belief in other minds and the constitutionality of its teaching in U.S. public schools. He defends the views that a justification of belief in the action of any other mind is dependent upon the explanatory inadequacy of chance and necessity to account for an observed pattern and that, whether science or not, ID in its most basic form is nonreligious, and its teaching to public school students is permissible under the Establishment Clause.

My question to them would be. Do they want to give equal time to these Japanese scientists who dont believe in the God of Jesus?

Ok, if ID is real, then who's version should we teach? How about the ID of Allah, or maybe we should teach the ID of Hindus or maybe the ID of Wiccas.

Look closely at how they avoid Jesus like the plaugue but at the same time desperately want ID taught in school, but would object to any ID other than the Christian version?

This is a scam to get the Bible read by teachers to teach the god of Jesus. They know they cant say that so they lie and say that is not what they are doing.

If it isnt, then the Christian who quoted this site should not object to any religion asserting their claims of what Inteligent Designer did all this.

The bottem line is this thread is a dishonest attempt to justify Christian mythology and the poster who started this thread has no intent of doing anything but promoting Christianity.

CHECK MATE!

 

 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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"debunked

"debunked mythology"

 

ahhhh true ignorance Smiling


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Lux wrote: "debunked

Lux wrote:

"debunked mythology"

 

ahhhh true ignorance Smiling

Oh crap, you got me. I forgot that in highschool in adition to disecting a frog, we speard one of our classmates in the side and let him die and raised him after 3 days. Standard lab experiment in all biology classes, even in Japan. Thank you for pointing out my error.

Like I said, you believe in a myth. Basterdize science and misquote others all you want, you have delluded yourself into buying a lie. 

Debunked mythology. Get back to me when you can replicat the  hocus pocus of your bible. No worries, I wont hold my breath. 

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Dear Loki, Please show this

Dear Loki,

Please show this Christian the error in his false belief. I pray that you give me the scientific tools to prove to him that an invisable purple snarfwidget does indeed make kegs of beer for me under my bed.

We know that since you created DNA and that kegs of beer and purple exist that you Loki can and does have the power to show this Christian that Jesus is a false god.

To you Loki I pray that the wonderment of science that YOU, the one true intelegent designer will show him the way.

Amun Ra 

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I don't know guys, this

I don't know guys, this seems to make evolution a bit more likely in my eyes.


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debunked mythology"

debunked mythology"

 

ahhhh true ignorance Smiling

How many times have I seen Proof by Assertion? If you wish for us to consider otherwise, show us a good reason. What did you intend to show with this article? Something I did not already know? Perhaps to convince me of this psuedoscience called Intelligent Design? I would point out that I am fully aware of how the information in DNA is stored and expressed, far better than you are, I might add.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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I think this opens up a

I think this opens up a massive door in information theory.

 

Information theory is basically the ability to distinguish between two similar objects/particles. For example, your credit cards uses magnetic information. On the strip there is small magnet slivers. Either it is magnetic or not. The sequence of magnetics can be used to relay your information in binary code. If it's magnetic it's value is 1. If not it's 0. So it can form the binary code 101011111100100011 for example and the computer can read that.

 

Quantum computing is much more exciting, it uses atoms in different states. So instead of the usual binary code of 1s and 0s, it can use 0,1,2,3...etc.

 

Curious, I'm no biologist, but  just how much information can they store? Can we use bigger bacteria to store more info?


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Cpt_pineapple wrote: I

Cpt_pineapple wrote:
I think this opens up a massive door in information theory.

I think the most interresting problem for information theory is how to encode information in DNA such that it will still be readable after hundreds or thousands or millions of years despite mutation. I don't even really know if that feasible. It seems like you might want something with a longer reproductive cycle and therefore lower rate of mutation than bacteria.

Cpt_pineapple wrote:
Information theory is basically the ability to distinguish between two similar objects/particles. For example, your credit cards uses magnetic information. On the strip there is small magnet slivers. Either it is magnetic or not. The sequence of magnetics can be used to relay your information in binary code. If it's magnetic it's value is 1. If not it's 0. So it can form the binary code 101011111100100011 for example and the computer can read that.

That's maybe a little simplistic. Wikipedia has a good article on Information Theory, it involves a lot more than just reading bits.

Cpt_pineapple wrote:
Quantum computing is much more exciting, it uses atoms in different states. So instead of the usual binary code of 1s and 0s, it can use 0,1,2,3...etc.

Actually, computers have no trouble representing 2,3,4, etc. If they did, think how useless they would be. I'm afraid the rabbit hole is much darker and deeper for quantum computing (which I am not an expert in). Rather than a bit just being definitely on or off (1 or 0), it can be in superposition, i.e. both on and off simultaneously. This should make it much more powerful for certain problems, such as factoring integers.

Cpt_pineapple wrote:
Curious, I'm no biologist, but  just how much information can they store? Can we use bigger bacteria to store more info?

Well, according to wiki there are about 3 billion base pairs in the human genome, and it appears that each base pair has 4 possible states (AT, CG, TA, and GC; any geneticist feel free to correct me here). So, it should be possible to store each base pair as 2 bits, which means that there would be 6 billion bits of data in the human genome, or about 750 megabytes.

That isn't a whole lot of data, and that's from one of the more complex organisms.

Anyone want to double-check my calculations?

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rexlunae

rexlunae wrote:
Cpt_pineapple wrote:
I think this opens up a massive door in information theory.

I think the most interresting problem for information theory is how to encode information in DNA such that it will still be readable after hundreds or thousands or millions of years despite mutation. I don't even really know if that feasible. It seems like you might want something with a longer reproductive cycle and therefore lower rate of mutation than bacteria.

 

So if you get sick with these bacteria will you get smarter? Undecided

 

Quote:
Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Information theory is basically the ability to distinguish between two similar objects/particles. For example, your credit cards uses magnetic information. On the strip there is small magnet slivers. Either it is magnetic or not. The sequence of magnetics can be used to relay your information in binary code. If it's magnetic it's value is 1. If not it's 0. So it can form the binary code 101011111100100011 for example and the computer can read that.

That's maybe a little simplistic. Wikipedia has a good article on Information Theory, it involves a lot more than just reading bits.

 

I'm trying to explain to Brian37. He said it was 'junk science' I was trying to explain how things store information.

 

Quote:
Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Quantum computing is much more exciting, it uses atoms in different states. So instead of the usual binary code of 1s and 0s, it can use 0,1,2,3...etc.

Actually, computers have no trouble representing 2,3,4, etc. If they did, think how useless they would be. I'm afraid the rabbit hole is much darker and deeper for quantum computing (which I am not an expert in). Rather than a bit just being definitely on or off (1 or 0), it can be in superposition, i.e. both on and off simultaneously. This should make it much more powerful for certain problems, such as factoring integers.

I'm not a computer programer, but I thought computers worked in binary code? Did they change or do I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about?

 

 

Quote:
Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Curious, I'm no biologist, but just how much information can they store? Can we use bigger bacteria to store more info?

Well, according to wiki there are about 3 billion base pairs in the human genome, and it appears that each base pair has 4 possible states (AT, CG, TA, and GC; any geneticist feel free to correct me here). So, it should be possible to store each base pair as 2 bits, which means that there would be 6 billion bits of data in the human genome, or about 750 megabytes. That isn't a whole lot of data, and that's from one of the more complex organisms. Anyone want to double-check my calculations?

 

That sounds promising!

 

edit:quote tags 


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Cpt_pineapple wrote: I'm

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

I'm not a computer programer, but I thought computers worked in binary code? Did they change or do I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about?

I apologize in advance for going off topic, but I want to answer this one:

Using base-2 (binary) is simply a more direct way of representing how the low-level hardware is working. The systems work with a series of higher voltages (the 1) and much lower voltages (the 0).

This would be fairly useless by itself, but using strings larger blocks of them is more useful (i.e. transitions over a given clock-rate 0010 for 2, 0011 for 3, 1001 for 9, etc). In other words, systems can represent larger numbers simply by using larger bit strings (e.g. a bit string of length 32 can represent the positive integers 0-4294967295; other encodings are also possible (using 2's complement for negatives, IEEE floating point for other real numbers, along with other representations for arbitrary precision)).

What makes quantum computing so neat is that the superposition of each bit in the string would allow effectively brute-forcing solutions for extremely large bit strings (in conventional computing, it takes about 45 months for even large distributed networks to brute force a single 64-bit RSA key - with quantum computing it could be done nearly instantaneously regardless of the key length (rendering RSA and most modern cryptology useless)).

On the bright side, it would eliminate the discrete logarithm problem Smiling

Looks like it's time to switch to OTP (quantum computing helps there too, as the pad can be transmitted in such a way that it can be known if it was observed in transit and discarded if it was).

As someone who loves computer science, math, and cryptology so much, I want one of these things NOW Smiling

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Quote: I'm trying to


Quote:
I'm trying to explain to Brian37. He said it was 'junk science' I was trying to explain how things store information.


I wrote a nother post after I said that correcting my intent of why I said that about the japanese website.

I corrected myself. I already said in the following post that IF that website were proping up the Jesus myth it would be Junk science too. But that website does not speculate that at all. The closest word at that site to anything "out there" is "extratrestrial" which means, not of earth. That does not mean "super natural".

The website isnt even suggesting a Sciontoloty myth. My point is that the Christian ID website is twisting the japanese artical which does not support the Jesus myth, and using it dishonestly to prop up their myth.

The Christian site originally quoted  is an ID activist site as in Christian ID, but is trying it's best to mask that to fool people. 

 

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Cpt_pineapple wrote:   So

Cpt_pineapple wrote:
 

So if you get sick with these bacteria will you get smarter? Undecided

As long as it's not windows bacterium. 

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Quote: Well, according to

Quote:
Well, according to wiki there are about 3 billion base pairs in the human genome, and it appears that each base pair has 4 possible states (AT, CG, TA, and GC; any geneticist feel free to correct me here). So, it should be possible to store each base pair as 2 bits, which means that there would be 6 billion bits of data in the human genome, or about 750 megabytes.

That isn't a whole lot of data, and that's from one of the more complex organisms.

Anyone want to double-check my calculations?

 

You wouldn't need two bits for each state, since A implies that it is bound to T, and vice versa. So you would only need 1 byte. That reduces it to 375 megabytes. Furthermore, lots of the genome doesn't is non-coding for protiens, or basically junk info. Who knows, maybe there is just 100 MBs of info in the genome.

Some of the "computers" I heard about that were being used by utilizing DNA or RNA were just representing chunks of D/RNA as some token and then using restriction enzymes to cut them up into those tokens, and then put them back together in a novel way to solve a problem. It was just a simple computer using organic compounds instead of silicon.

Storing information in DNA is an interesting idea, but why not try and store information in an artificial neural network, or an organic artificially grown neural network at that. We know our brain does a pretty good job at information storage and retrieval, why not focus on that?


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brainman wrote: You

brainman wrote:
You wouldn't need two bits for each state, since A implies that it is bound to T, and vice versa. So you would only need 1 byte. That reduces it to 375 megabytes.

You mean 1 bit, correct? The thing I was not certain about is if the reversal of the base pairs is significant (i.e is AT distinct from TA). I'm not a biochemist, so I can't say for certain, but I would guess that it is. Do you happen to know for sure? If the reversal is significant, you need the two bits per base pair.

The reason that I suspect that reversal is relevant is that when DNA is transcribed, I believe it splits apart, and then at each location you would have any of the 4 bases.

brainman wrote:
Furthermore, lots of the genome doesn't is non-coding for protiens, or basically junk info.

True, but the point was to get a rough idea how much storage potential DNA has by looking at one of the more complex genomes, so eliminating junk data defeats to point.

brainman wrote:
Who knows, maybe there is just 100 MBs of info in the genome.

I have to say, I was expecting there to be more. It's somewhat surprising that such a small amount of data can contain the instructions to build something so complex as the brain.

brainman wrote:
Some of the "computers" I heard about that were being used by utilizing DNA or RNA were just representing chunks of D/RNA as some token and then using restriction enzymes to cut them up into those tokens, and then put them back together in a novel way to solve a problem. It was just a simple computer using organic compounds instead of silicon.

Not familiar with that.

brainman wrote:
Storing information in DNA is an interesting idea, but why not try and store information in an artificial neural network, or an organic artificially grown neural network at that. We know our brain does a pretty good job at information storage and retrieval, why not focus on that?

The idea is that the data would replicate and persist over long spans of time (maybe millions of years). It would be hard to accomplish that with neural networks, I think.

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rexlunae wrote: Well,

rexlunae wrote:
Well, according to wiki there are about 3 billion base pairs in the human genome, and it appears that each base pair has 4 possible states (AT, CG, TA, and GC; any geneticist feel free to correct me here). So, it should be possible to store each base pair as 2 bits, which means that there would be 6 billion bits of data in the human genome, or about 750 megabytes. That isn't a whole lot of data, and that's from one of the more complex organisms. Anyone want to double-check my calculations?

 

actually order reversal is important as well, so you have 8.

 

And 750 megabytes not alot? Think about the space we are talking about here. That information is EXTREMELY dense. the entire human genome is in every cell of your body. Cells are microscopic. You have trillions of cells in your body. At 750 MB per cell, you could fit a TON of data into a conventional space or modestly huge amounts of data into tiny devices. It would be an absolute revolution in data storage.


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theotherguy wrote: actually

theotherguy wrote:
actually order reversal is important as well, so you have 8.

If reversal is relevant (which was the uncertainty), there should be 4 possibilities: AT, TA CG, and GC.

theotherguy wrote:
And 750 megabytes not alot?

My comment about it not being a lot was more a response to the fact that only 750 MB is enough information to build an organism so complex as a human, and my initial uncertainty that my calculations were correct.

theotherguy wrote:
Think about the space we are talking about here. That information is EXTREMELY dense. the entire human genome is in every cell of your body. Cells are microscopic. You have trillions of cells in your body.

I think we can only really look at the space in a single cellular nucleus, as the point is to be able to rely on the organism's reproduction to propagate the data. There are significant difficulties with creating a single organism (or cell cluster) containing different DNA in each cell, and even if you could, you would need a way for all of that information to be passed on to descendants, which would be even harder.

But perhaps you could embed sequence numbers in each cell to split it up into discrete organisms, and create some sort of heterogeneous bacterial cell colony. But you'd still have to make sure that natural selection doesn't eliminate any strains. And it seems like one necessary part of the point is to release them into the natural environment so they don't need to be fed forever to preserve the data, and it would be hard to be sure you wouldn't loose part of it.

Additional Thoughts? It's certainly a very interesting problem.

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