A template for philosophical debates 16 Jul 201216 Jul 2012 [Click through to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal] Mind, equally popular is this syllogism: If P is true, then my opponent will be sad. I wish my opponent to be sad. Therefore P is true. Humor Logic and philosophy Philosophy
Evolution On the problem of the problem of evil and Darwin 15 Mar 2011 In yet another essay reprising his argument that theists can be good Darwinians (a position I concur with, incidentally), Michael Ruse makes the following comment, based on a book by Karl Giberson and Francis Collins, The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions: Where I do want… Read More
Administrative My present work 10 Oct 2010 Life can be … interesting, for Chinese values thereof. No, I don’t mean the Nobel Prize, although good choice. I mean that I’m presently undergoing some kind of curse. I think it’s called “work” . Work!? So what I’m doing doesn’t translate to meaningful blog posts. Not always (but eventually,… Read More
Creationism and Intelligent Design The tautology problem 20 Aug 2009 A long time ago I wrote a not particularly good piece on the tautology problem: that natural selection is merely circular definition. I was just out of being an undergraduate when it was published, so it was at best an undergraduate piece. I have been unsatisfied with it ever since…. Read More
The theological version is, I believe “If P is false, baby Jesus will be sad. I do not want to burn in hell for eternity/I want to sing with angels for eternity (delete as appropriate for your denomination), therefore P is true.”
This is a philosophical question on the scientific understanding of life. DNA is sometimes referred to as “strands of life.” Within the nucleus of a cell, DNA “unzips” itself during the S phase, and each single strand (RNA) is a template for a new complete strand. RNA is said to have “chemical messengers” that carry the necessary information to make the proteins needed for reproduction, but how can a chemical “contain” and “use” information? When it comes to the cellular level, I can understand cell reproduction because a cell contains organelles. A cell doesn’t start with a nucleus. It starts with DNA (nuclear division). But with DNA, reproduction is supposedly all happening simply because of chemical reactions. What tells the cell to “unzip?” Please don’t just leave me a website link. `
If you won’t read the material that answers your question, why should I bother trying to explain it to you?