Louis
Posts: 6436
Joined: Jan. 2006
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| Quote (raguel @ Mar. 31 2008,02:46) | From Kevin's "answers":
| Quote | | I know there are probably many more predictions than this, but here are a few that I find compelling:...4) informational structures beyond the inherent abilities of blind natural forces and random chance will be found, |
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way I can see the above being true is if one can experimentally 1) determine if a molecule is "synthetic" by it's chemical properties (specifically, it's reactivity and 3d shape) alone, (2) can determine which molecules weren't produced by chemical reactions, and/or (3)the formation of the "structure" in question can't occur in an organism. Nothing these people say make sense. |
1) I would LOVE to see this done. It's erm, well ahahaha, I hate to use the word but impossible to all intents and purposes (ignoring isotopic/compositional differences obviously). I look forward to vitalism being proven and Wohler spinning in his grave. On that day I shall cut my own cock off with a rusty pineapple.
The only possible way to know if a molecule is synthetic is by its isotopic composition, to take one example, synthetic/semisynthetic testosterone used in athletic steroids can often have a detectably different isotopic composition from that of the person taking the steroids own testosterone. Ignorning kinetic isotope effects (which IMO is an error, enzyme mediated reactions can be profoundly influenced by subtle kinetic effects like the isotope effect), that testosterone is chemically identical to that of the person who is taking it.
Since there is no such thing as 100% pure anything, the residual chemical impurities that are the legacy of any chemical reaction (biological or otherwise) can also be a clue to the synthetic or natural origins of a specific sample. However if we are talking about some hypothetical, idealised abstraction of a single "synthetic" and a single "natural" molecule in isolation, with no systematic information and of identical isotopic compositions then there is no way to distinguish between them. They are identical and I return to my original cock removal comment! ;-)
2)/3) All molecules are formed by a chemical reaction of some kind, by definition, but given what you said in 3) I see what you mean as being that a chemical reaction in an organisms could not have made molecule X so it had to be a chemical reaction in a lab. This is a bit different.
We can, have and will continue to make molecules and assemblies of atoms that no known chemical reaction from any known biological system could possibly make. We can and do perform chemical reactions that are utterly impossible in biological systems (if only, for example, because biological systems frequently use water as a solvent for many solution phase reactions). However, chemical reactions found in biological systems still do things we cannot yet emulate, and often with an efficiency and selectivity we can only dream of.
More than that, we can also make molecules and assemblies of atoms and perform chemical reactions that are found nowhere outside of a laboratory, be that in space, in some geological process or in some biological process. There are a great deal of things we can make that are incredibly unlikely to be found occuring in "nature".
However any chemical detail of this comment you quote from Kevin the Perpetually Bewildered, is ultimately based on some equivocation of the word "natural". It's chemically meaningless. The thing you quote from Kevin is a pseudophilosophical bit of garbage, it abounts to nothing less than concrete proof of the existance of a deity (or some such supernatural entity) which if it were found would also be concrete proof that such an entity were entirely natural! It's standard IDCist confusobabble, demonstrating yet again that ID is not science but religious wishful thinking.
Louis
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Bye.
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