Re: talk.origins faq Hitler claim part 3


nando_ronteltap@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Hershey:
> "Without organisms regarding reproduction as important, there would be
> no fitness or adaptation to reproduction."
>
> You are obviously encroaching on religion.....

How so?
>
> So, does simple DNA, without a cell even, on a food substrate, regard
> reproduction as important?

You are assuming that this 'regarding reproduction as important' must
be a conscious event. It doesn't have to be.

> DNA does not regard anything, there is nothing important to it.

Whether or not one regards viruses as 'alive' or not, they do
objectively reproduce and are 'alive' in that sense. Reproduction in a
host (sometimes as bare DNA or RNA and, in the case of viroids, without
even encoding proteins) *is* what they do. It *is* the key defining
feature of these entities. Thus reproduction is important to *their*
continued existence. DNA molecules without the capacity for
reproduction, and hence without the capacity to evolve via selection,
are nothing but food for entities capable of reproduction.

So, to answer your question, *some* DNA molecules are 'alive' in the
sense of being able to reproduce. Reproduction is the key defining
feature that distinguishes those DNA molecules that are (in that sense)
'alive'. So reproduction is important to these molecules continuing to
be 'alive'.

> Your best defense to use values, is to say, well I like to use those
> value-laden words, it makes it more easier to think creatively about
> the subject.

When something (like reproduction) is the key defining feature of
something (like life), it (reproduction) is important to the very
meaning of the something (life). To say otherwise is to say that
reproduction is unimportant or meaningless to life, that it is
unnecessary or irrelevant for life to exist. That is what you are
saying. But you refuse to provide the evidence you must have that
reproduction is irrelevant or unnecessary for life. Instead you
complain that using a term like imporant or valuable (meaning
important) in this way is value-laden in the *moral* sense of value.

> So then we may compromise that it is allowable to use
> value-laden words this way, if you also acknowledge the appriopate
> creationist use of valuejudgements in terms of decisions.

You have, to date *refused* to talk about these creationist
'decisions'. You have not said exactly what 'decisions' you think were
made, who made them, where and when they were made, and how they were
materially enacted. You are the one who is hiding what he means, not
me.

> But you are not using value-laden words loosely, you insist on it, that
> it is an observable fact that organisms regard reproduction as
> important, and that can never pass, because no observation can possibly
> warrant that conclusion to standards of objectivity.

Every *living* entity (and that includes certain, but not all, naked
stretches of RNA or DNA) empirically behaves as if its continued
existence depended on its reproduction. For most organisms this is not
a conscious choice or behavior, but they nonetheless behave that way.
[Note: the living thing does not have to be successful in reproduction
to empirically behave as if its continued existence depended on its
reproduction.] This is merely the observation that reproduction is the
key defining feature of life; it is how we divide living entities from
non-living ones. It is also how we divide living entities into those
that successfully transmit their particular genetic information into
the future (continue to contribute to the future of life) from those
who don't.

Absent reproduction life ceases after this generation. And yet you
regard reproduction as unimportant or irrelevant to life? Please
explain why you think the (to my mind) rather ignorant idea that
reproduction is irrelevant and unimportant to life?
>
> regards,
> Mohammad Nor Syamsu

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: PiP OOL 1 - Origin of Life == Emergence of Biochemistry
    ... What is a prerequisite in the origin of life is an autopoietic system, ... Stable reproduction probably came much later. ... the probability of any *particular* bridge hand being dealt is about the ... The bridge hands here are the bounded autocatalytic chemical reaction ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: And an artificial womb next??
    ... about aging eggs and aging wombs. ... I said nothing about limiting a woman's reproduction. ... She had a child at 52 naturally, ... having your eggs frozen isn't part of the natural cycle of life. ...
    (soc.men)
  • Re: And an artificial womb next??
    ... I said nothing about limiting a woman's reproduction. ... She had a child at 52 naturally, ... having your eggs frozen isn't part of the natural cycle of life. ... but my point is made that we don't limit people who use science ...
    (soc.men)
  • Re: The Vagina
    ... that "egg" laying is quite different from producing gametes ... egg Madman refers to is really a full life stage containing a ... well before animals and plants and fungi. ... penis is associated with internal reproduction which is an ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Tech building
    ... I can't imagine ways in which natural selection can be falsified -- so ... the theory which says that the forms life takes on ... Natural selection requires about threethings: reproduction, ... But now that we "know" how life on Earth works (DNA and stuff), ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)