Tag: University of Tokyo

^{Type
post

Author
Brian Miller

Date
May 16, 2022

Tagged
alkaline thermal vents, Brian Miller, Charles Darwin, Darwin, design logics, devolution, DNA, E. coli, enzymes, error-correction mechanisms, Evolution, hype, James Tour, Jeremy England, Life on Fire, Materialism, Michael Russel, Molecular Machines, Natural Selection, Naturalism, Nature Communications, organizational blueprint, organizational design, origin of life, RNA, RNA first, RNA-World hypothesis, Robert Shapiro, Science Daily, self-organization, self-replicating molecules, self-replicating RNA, self-replication, Steven Novella, synthetic organic chemistry, The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, University of Tokyo}

Origin-of-Life Mystery at the University of Tokyo, Pt. 2

_{Brian Miller

May 16, 2022

Uncategorized}

Today’s ID the Future is Part 2 of physicist Brian Miller exploring a recent report from the University of Tokyo claiming a big breakthrough in origin-of-life research. As Miller and host Eric Anderson make clear, the university’s laboratory work on RNA, detailed in a recent Nature Communications article, involved the intelligent interference of the lab scientists and, despite this intelligent interference, the devolution of RNA rather than the evolution of increasing RNA sophistication. Miller says that it’s ironic that Steven Novella, a scientist committed to puncturing science hype, seems to have fallen for the hype surrounding this laboratory work. Miller and Anderson go on to discuss critiques of origin-of-life tall-tale claims, critiques coming Robert Shapiro, James Tour, and others. Life, Miller says, requires organizational blueprints and design logics already in place to battle against nature’s relentless tendency toward entropy. Without those sophisticated organizational blueprints already instantiated in living cells and sophisticated molecular machinery, natural forces appear utterly powerless to pull off the kind of creative design work required to move from non-life to life.

Single strand ribonucleic acid, RNA research and therapy

^{Type
post

Author
Brian Miller

Date
May 9, 2022

Tagged
Darwinism, devolution, DNA, entropy, Evolution, evolutionary paradigm, genetic information, Intelligent Design, molecular machinery, Nature Communications, nonfunctional RNA, nucleotides, origin of lie, origin-of-life experiment, parasitic RNAs, primordial soup, replicase, replicase enzyme, replication process, replicators, ribozyme, RNA, RNA network, RNA template, Science Daily, Thermodynamics, University of Tokyo, virus}

Did U of Tokyo Just Solve the Mystery of Life’s Origin?

_{Brian Miller

May 9, 2022

Uncategorized}

On this ID the Future, Brian Miller, research coordinator for the Center for Science & Culture, reports on laboratory research recently presented in Nature Communications and in a University of Tokyo press release— research that supposedly provides dramatic “new insights into the possible origin of life,” and specifically “the molecular evolution of RNA.” The popular press picked up on these claims and ran with them, including in this May 5 Quanta article that breathlessly reported, “When researchers gave a genetic molecule the ability to replicate, it evolved over time into a complex network of ‘hosts’ and ‘parasites’ that both competed and cooperated to survive.” Miller says nothing remotely this dramatic occurred in the experiment. He insists there were no great revelations from this laboratory work, aside perhaps from it further corroborating the view that precisely orchestrated interventions of an intelligent designer (in this case, that of the lab researchers) are required in order to make any headway on the road from non-life to life. But as Miller’s conversation with host Eric Anderson suggests, even that might be to exaggerate what the University of Tokyo experimenters accomplished, since the RNA “evolution” they achieved was actually devolution. Tune in as Miller and Anderson break it down. And for more, check out Miller’s Evolution News article on the subject.