Evidence for the integrity of the Discovery Institute

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You refuse to learn anything from me, but maybe you will at least be willing to learn something from Nature:

“In an RNA world, the standard theory says, life could have existed as complex proto-RNA strands that were able to both copy themselves and compete with other strands. Later, these ‘RNA enzymes’ could have evolved the ability to build proteins and ultimately to transfer their genetic information into more-stable DNA. Exactly how this could happen was an open question, partly because catalysts made of RNA alone are much less efficient than the protein-based enzymes found in all living cells today. “Although [RNA] catalysts were discovered, their catalytic power is lousy,” says Thomas Carell, an organic chemist at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany.”

See https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01303-z#:~:text=In%20an%20RNA%20world%2C%20the,information%20into%20more%2Dstable%20DNA.

This was what I had in mind when I referred to a “limited catalytic capacity.” If you don’t like my choice of words, you can suggest a better one, but this was the idea I had in mind.

And yes, I know that the article goes on to suggest that this difficulty about catalyzing might be overcome – I’m not trying to conceal that. I’m merely explaining what I had in mind by my phrase – in answer to your question marks.

Note, however, that even by the end of the article, the authors pitch for an “RNA-protein world” rather than a straight “RNA world”.

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No, Eddie, Nature News is the gossip part that you’re citing. It’s not written by the experts who do the work. Calling a hypothesis a theory is a big tell. So is “Later, these ‘RNA enzymes’ could have evolved the ability to build proteins…” when in fact, they literally do today. Keep digging, though.

You made an explicitly global claim about RNA with “only.” So, are you trying to claim that modern peptidyl transferase has “only a limited catalytic capacity”? If so, where’s the evidence? There’s nothing in the blurb you touted to help you.

Do you not see that painting ribozymes as globally lame paints you into a corner? Now you have to explain why the Intelligent Designer (God) chose such an inferior catalyst instead of designing a protein.

Meyer’s solution to this dilemma was to simply lie and claim that ribozymes simply don’t exist in modern life–that the two Nobels given for discovering them never existed, and it’s all just lame stuff done in labs.

What’s yours? Don’t you see that admitting the existence of the current RNA World diminishes God, if He designed it Himself? Meyer clearly did and fudged the evidence to avoid that.

Note, however, that there’s only one author. Either way, I’m fine with modifying the RNA World hypothesis (never been a theory) using the evidence, unlike you.

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I doubt it does to any observer other than you. But the fact is that you do bring out the worst in people. I could go into why, but you would think it petty.

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Mikkel provided a great framework for counting Meyer’s lies and sneakier elisions:

Eddie, none of the things emphasized in there (going by memory) were addressed by Meyer. That’s a pretty accurate picture of the integrity of the DI and its supporters.

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That made me laugh very hard. Sorry, reviews of crackpots by other crackpots is not likely to be worthwhile reading. I have not heard of the other two individuals you cite. Hopefully, they are not also
ridiculous assclowns.

I guess you just aren’t very well read on the subject. Bad memory, too. I am certain I have already cited this for you:

Sandwalk: Of mice and Michael

I could cite many more examples. Oh, how about this one :wink:

Michael Behe: 15 Years After Dover - Better Right Than Happy

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192

I’m often impressed at the effort that goes into defending these guys. Impressed, and a bit surprised.

As a civil rights litigator who often represented atypical civil rights clients, I used to have to defend people whom everyone hated. I had to deliver ultimatums to public bodies in public places, and then sometimes administer the punishment, via the courts, when those ultimatums weren’t heeded. I so often had nobody in the room who agreed with me. It’s awfully nasty, sometimes, when you can feel the heat of people’s hostility refocusing on you.

But there were, of course, reasons to do it. These were people who were generally innocent of the crimes against whatever-it-was – the environment, public safety, what-have-you – which the consensus of the booboisie had deemed them guilty of. It made taking on that task worthwhile. It even, after a few rounds, made people question themselves. If I stood up and hollered in favor of the fellow everybody already knew was wrong, and then whupped the County on his behalf in federal court a few months or a few years later, people were astonished. And then they began to maybe, just maybe, see that if I was willing to take this on again, on behalf of someone else who was ALSO known by everybody to be wrong, it might just be that things were a little more complicated and that they needed to listen. My last civil rights client, a much-despised municipal contractor falsely accused of massively overbilling the public, and victimized by an unlawful search, seizure and threats of criminal prosecution which made his life a living hell, made headlines when we settled his case with a large settlement from the clowns who had done these things. Everybody knew he was wrong; and in knowing that, everybody was, in fact, wrong.

When you do that sort of flying-in-the-face-of-what-everyone-thinks-is-reasonable, you don’t want to do it without putting in the work and understanding the merits and really, really drilling down and figuring out that, in fact, what everyone believes is wrong. And there is a genuinely good feeling about it, when the client, once unable to find a lawyer who would even listen, feels vindicated and the intensity of the public hostility is blunted by new troubling doubts.

So if I thought that the ID Creationists were getting unfairly abused, by gum, I would be very happy to go do this sort of thing again. If everybody is wrongly dumping on them, wrongly accusing them of dishonesty, et cetera, it’d be a great feeling to get on their side and show those bad, nasty people what-fer. If that could be the motive, I could readily understand the tenacious and passionate defense they’re given. If that were how things were, I’d be on that side like a shot.

But it’s so obviously not that. What the hell makes a person defend Stephen Meyer for denying that there were mammals before the Eocene, or for trying to hide the ball on the RNA world? What the hell makes somebody waste dozens of messages trying to show that Doug Axe is well justified in saying that biologists now think evolution has stopped? How on earth do people say things in defense of the indefensible? When I had to step up and defend what others thought was indefensible, I had my homework and I knew my facts and my law and I knew I could win. But the passion with which these various defenses are mounted is matched only by the sheer incompetency on the merits which is their most obvious, and unvarying, characteristic.

Why the perversity? Isn’t it obvious to everyone in the room that, if “Intelligent Design” is to be a viable scientific pursuit, the first thing it needs is a new set of proponents who will throw all of the existing ID literature on a bonfire and pledge never to speak of it, or of its authors, again? I can understand how religious prejudice can animate people to wish, passionately, that ID propositions were true. What I cannot understand is the perversity of wishing that so much that one is willing to praise the absolute rubbish which, today, is ID.

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The answer is simple: Some people are highly motivated by the desire to Own The Libs.

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Yeah I can’t find another explanation than that. It’s a grievance by people who want to get back at “smug, latte-drinking elitists and academics.”

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In the case if the DI, it’s more that they want to put the gayz, wammins, jewz and moslims back in their place.

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I guess. But it’s certainly an exceedingly futile way to do those things.

I recall that when I was a litigator, it wasn’t uncommon, when dealing with new clients who had no prior experience of litigation, for them to think of litigation as something which was an end in itself. “We’ll sue 'em! THAT’LL show 'em!” And so the answer that ought to have been obvious all along had to be repeated again: that it will indeed show 'em if we win, and it will make everything worse, and embolden our opponents, if we lose. The only way forward was to evaluate whether to sue, and who, and on what claims.

It would indeed be rich revenge against those perceived elitists (and “libs,” though the way in which actual biology came to be regarded as a left-wing phenomenon still puzzles me greatly), if the ID Creationists were able to DO anything. If they were able to do work which demonstrated – oh, I dunno – that there was actual evidence that things were designed, for example. That WOULD show 'em, both literally and figuratively.

But instead we have something which is a nonstarter scientifically and which, not surprisingly, turned out to be a nonstarter legally, too. If I were a donor, I’d get pretty impatient. I’d be saying, “we were promised WINNING. Where’s that gone? And why is everyone still pointing and laughing?”

But, then, I do not understand the emotional landscape on that side. I didn’t know beans about ribosomes and ribozymes and peptidyl transferase myself, and if I’d read Stephen Meyer’s book, that’s one of those subjects on which he’d have completely bamboozled me. But if I thought I’d been given an important insight into the impossibility of the RNA world, and then I discussed this with scientists and found out that I’d been bamboozled, I certainly wouldn’t turn my anger at the scientists. I’d wonder why it was that Stephen Meyer, in the course of helping me understand this grand new theory that’s gonna upend all of biology, fer sure, one of these days, LIED to me. And the wondering wouldn’t last long because the game ain’t that complex. And so, after that, I would be left asking, “isn’t there ANYONE promoting ID who isn’t dishonest?”

It is of course possible for an idea to be worthwhile, and yet for all of its proponents to be mountebanks. But it is one of those things that does sharply contravene probability, and so it’s not a good bet unless you’re getting some pretty amazing odds.

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Or even if their writing was so convincing that it inspired someone else to do something.

We can be certain that Doug Axe’s laboratory at Biola (if it even exists) is not a hive of scientific activity, with students volunteering to do work that they think will revolutionize biology and medicine.

But alas, ID rhetoric inspires no one to do anything but laugh, or for those supporters whose egos won’t let them admit that they have been thoroughly conned, argue about how awesome ID books really are, if you just read them all and stop focusing on the obvious falsehoods.

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Then you aren’t a very self-critical individual with much awareness of how his internet persona comes across. Again I ask you: do you talk to your wife, friends, colleagues at work, family members, etc., the way you routinely talk to me and others on this site?

So how do you explain that I have no problem having civilized conversations here with Joshua, Daniel, Jon Garvey, Michelle, Ron Sewell, Allen Miller, Matthew Dickau, etc.? Haven’t you been observant enough to catch that the people with whom I most often have frictional exchanges are either de jure or de facto atheists? And quite often aggressive in their atheism and materialism? So the “people” in whom I supposedly bring out the worst are not a typical cross-section of the population, are they? And doesn’t that suggest that the problem is at least as likely to come from others as from me?

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Yet you called them “other crackpots” immediately, so your “hopefully” is insincere. You have already prejudged them without reading a line of their works – presumably, purely because I recommended them. Which would be puerile. But this may help you. One of my greatest foes here, now departed from out midst, was that Australian from Taiwan who attacked anything I wrote reflexively. Yet he mentioned (without any coaching from me) Kojonen and Ratzsch as reasonably intelligent presentations of design thinking. So that should enable you to read them without fear only Eddie respects them.

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Are you saying the writer of that article didn’t know what he was talking about? If so, why did Nature print it? Doesn’t it exercise editorial control to make sure bad science doesn’t appear on its pages? Anyhow, given that origin of life isn’t your field of either training or publication, why should I trust your judgement about the article?

But I don’t need the Nature News article. I can cite a major reference work: Encyclopedia of Evolution (ed. Pagel), Vol. 2, page 847 (under article “Origin of Life”, section “Origin of Replicators”). The article uses the term “RNA world” exactly as I use it, not as you use it. You’re manipulating the phrase, altering its original meaning for your polemical purposes. I’m using it apolitically, in the sense it was intended by the scientists (much more prominent than you) who originated the idea and coined the term (Woese, Crick, Orgel, Gilbert). I don’t intend to change my usage to match that of second or third tier biochemist whose field is not even origin of life.

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It doesn’t appear that he knows much about the field from the text I quoted. But you’ve made progress–you now know that there was only one author!

It’s in the News section, touting a peer-reviewed article that apparently you couldn’t be bothered to read.

It’s news, not science. The science is in the article cited. You really should read the poo more carefully before you fling it.

I can see why you are so easily confused given how easily and how often you have been conned by IDcreationists. Don’t you get tired of them playing you?

Nice straw man! I never said you should. I merely said that it was not written by the people who did the work.

The idea that I would attempt to advise someone who claims to know that Denton, who doesn’t even know that evolution produces trees, not ladders (the howler from his first book) has read much more about evolutionary biology than Francis Collins, but doesn’t even know that ribozymes are made of ribonucleic acid, is laughable.

You’re beyond hope.

The “you” in this context is plural and includes RNA biologists @Art Hunt and Tom Cech. The latter won a Nobel for another important piece of evidence that Meyer was far less than forthcoming about. It’s entertaining watching you digging a deeper hole.

Tell that to Tom Cech:

The title is “Exploring the New RNA World.” It’s about how we still live in one, revealed by the very evidence you and Meyer lied about and omit. Just think of the embarrassment you would have saved yourself had you read this part:

Then, in 2000, the atomic-level picture of the ribosome emerged, showing the complex fold of the RNA molecules buttressed and supported by numerous proteins. One structure showed the site where amino acids are strung together into proteins (the peptidyltransferase center); it is in fact composed of RNA, with no proteins in the vicinity (1). This provides the most direct evidence yet that the ribosome is indeed a ribozyme, an RNA catalyst.

You:

Pretty stark, no?

The idea that you do anything apolitically here is absurd.

So Nobel Laureate Tom Cech is third-tier? And your pretense of claiming walls between fields/expertise is laughable too, particularly for a pseudonymous armchair critic.

Or if you’re trying to assign a tier to me with no evidence, let’s compare and contrast my publication record with that of your hero, Behe.

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The mere invocation of the name of a Nobel winner proves nothing. Please show me where Tom Cech denies the description of the “RNA world” hypothesis that is given in the Encyclopedia of Evolution. I doubt he ever does.

I never denied that RNA had catalytic properties. In fact, I conceded that it did. It doesn’t follow from the fact that Cech worked on RNA’s catalytic properties that he uses the term “RNA world” differently from others.

As for Art Hunt, he has not yet spoken on the meaning of the phrase “RNA world,” so your invocation of his name is of no use, either. Besides, his research field is nowhere near origin of life.

I’ll stick with the explanation given in the Encyclopedia of Evolution. It matches all other uses of the term I’ve seen anywhere else. Indeed, only on this site have I seen your usage, which appears to be entirely idiosyncratic. And given you aren’t in the relevant field, that makes your idiosyncratic usage of even less of interest to me.

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There was no mere invocation of a name.

In the linked article, literally in the title, supporting it throughout the article with a massive amount of evidence. Invocation of an encyclopedia on a scientific matter is absurd, but that’s all you’ve got.

Ah, but the point is that you were conned into believing that RNA isn’t doing major catalysis TODAY. That’s Meyer’s whole con.

It’s not that it CAN, it’s that it STILL DOES; we’ve learned all of that since the RNA World hypothesis was first advanced. That’s why we obviously live in the RNA World today.

Good grief. You will write pages of drivel, but can’t even click on an obvious link. It’s the entire theme of Cech’s article:

Within the past few years, RNA research has reached new heights. It’s now clear that RNA catalysis has a much more central role in biology than many would have guessed. Furthermore, RNA often controls the expression of genes, another role that had been thought to be at least mostly the domain of proteins called “repressors” and “transcription factors.” [omitted by Meyer]

Very recently, however, this issue has been revisited. In another branch of the bacterial kingdom, RNA elements built into messenger RNAs can directly sense the concentration of small metabolites and turn gene expression on or off in response. These riboswitches fold into intricate structures that can distinguish one metabolite from another (5). [omitted by Meyer]

Wow. That’s utterly false. Do you have early-onset dementia?

@Art thoroughly schooled you on this very point almost three years ago:

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Seriously???

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No, I never said that, or implied it. Yes, as part of the ribosome, RNA does that. But you still can’t grasp the difference between the situation TODAY and the hypothetical situation envisioned by “RNA world” theory. That you don’t grasp the difference tells me you are so ignorant of what “RNA world” theory is about that you have no business talking about it. Do your homework!

None of this is relevant to my point. Cech is talking about what RNA does now, in the context of cellular life set up with the DNA-RNA-protein arrangement. The RNA world hypothesis concerned a world where that triple arrangement did not exist. How much could RNA do in that world? I asked you, and you had no answer.

I meant that he has not yet spoken in this conversation. I don’t keep a record of everything he has said in past conversations.

I meant you had not yet spoken in this conversation.

Look, guys, the fact is this: when the topic of conversation is origin of life, and someone mentions an “RNA world”, he is talking about a hypothetical world prior to the DNA-RNA-protein world, in which RNA was the replicating molecule and also the catalyzing one. He’s not talking about how RNA functions today in a completely different biological reality.

Now, we were talking about origin of life above, and so my usage of “RNA world” follows the normal understanding. Nothing I said denies the truth of anything Cech says about the role of RNA today. But what we are discussing, and, more importantly, what Meyer was discussing, is that hypothetical RNA world. The whole point of Meyer’s first book, for anyone who is not brain-dead, is that life could not have originated by chance plus natural laws, but required also intelligent design. And in the course of that book, Meyer reviewed the “RNA world” hypothesis, since it purported to explain how life could have arisen by chance and natural laws alone, without design. He said there were limitations to how much RNA strands, by themselves, outside of the modern living context, could do; and his view on that limitation is echoed in the Nature News article I quoted, which Mercer dismissed. And it’s perfectly appropriate to point out those limitations in the context of the hypothetical ancient world Meyer was talking about. I’ve asked Mercer to tell me what RNA strands, by themselves, floating around in some primeval ocean, or even some primeval pond, could do, in the absence of the current DNA-RNA-protein setup and in the absence of containing cell walls. Mercer has no answer.

The bigger question, of course, is why Mercer, who declares himself a Christian, is so eager to persuade all readers here that life could have arisen purely through chance and natural laws, without any design. Does that sound like a Christian view? Does the Bible say, “In the beginning, God created natural laws, and the first matter, and left things to chance to develop from there?” Is that what Mercer believes Christianity teaches about origins? We’ll never know, because Mercer will never speak about his faith here. Religiously speaking, that’s unacceptable behavior for a Christian in a setting (faith-science discussions) where other Christians are looking for help from Christian scientists to put together their faith with their science. Hiding one’s faith under a bushel is not merely selfish but irresponsible in that context.

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No, my comment was clearly in reference only to Shapiro. You’re not a very good reader, are you? As is only made more clear by the hilarious sequence of posts above on RNA world.

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