Re: THE $10 MILLION PRIZE FOR PROOF EVOLUTION 2.0

Ernest Major <{$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk> writes:

On 19/03/2024 17:33, Richmond wrote:

erik simpson <eastside.erik@gmail.com> writes:
 

On 3/19/24 10:06 AM, Richmond wrote:

Ron Dean <rondean-noreply@gmail.com> writes:
>

THIS IS A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME WEALTHY. A $10,000.000
PRIZE.
>
IF EVOLUTION IS A REALITY OF NATURE.  THERE IS NO REASON FOR
SOMEONE _NOT_ TO WIN THIS PRIZE.
>
EVOLUTION 2.0 PRIZE KEY FACTS: Evolution 2.0 is a $10 million
technology prize backed by a private equity investment group
formed to identify a naturally occurring code.  The Prize came
about from the group’s inaugural meeting May 31, 2019, at The
Royal Society of Great Britain.
>
The judges are: George Church. Denis Noble, Michael Ruse
>
https://evo2.org/theprize/ What do you mean by code? Like a dress

code?
>

I have sneaking suspicion nobody's going to win this.  This isn't
new; it's been around since 2006, maybe earlier.  There's even a
book:
https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-2-0-Breaking-Deadlock-Between/dp/1940363802
>
The usual "atheists vs. ID proponents" are featured.  That page

appears to have the answer, DNA is a code. DNA is naturally
occuring. I claim my $10 million dollars. I'd like it paid in gold.
 

>
Ron Dean conflated abiogenesis and evolution. The challenge is to
cause the equivalent of the genetic code to spontaneously form in real
time. You can't point to the evolution of SARS-COV-2 in real time to
win the prize, but that doesn't mean that the evolution of SARS-COV-2
isn't part of the reality of nature. (Alternatively, stellar evolution
is part of the reality of nature, but that doesn't mean that one can
reasonably expect to form a star in the laboratory.)
>
Ron Dean also misrepresented the criterion for winning. As stated
previously, the challenge is not to identify a code, but to cause one
to form spontaneously in real time.
>
Ron Dean may have provided the wrong link. If my memory serves me
correctly there's a creationist "prize" on superficially similar
lines.
>
A couple of other comments. I wondered what would happen if someone
submitted ChatGPT as a contender for the prize, but reading the finer
print, the requirement is for a chemical process. Spiegelman's monster
is a chemical, and similar structures form spontaneously from systems
of nucleotides and a RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, but I guess that
doesn't qualify as a code. Other out of the box ideas are index
minerals and Fraunhofer lines in stellar spectra (but the latter works
on the atomic, rather than the molecular level).
>
This also reminds me of Kaufmann's self-organisation research program,
which I have the impression gave better results in relation to ecology
that to abiogenesis.

Well that all sounds great. I suppose the next question I had lined up:
what do you mean by 'nature', would be superfluous.

What about the courtship dances of birds, are they a code? or the
patterns of colour in their plumage? or the song of the blackbird, or
the robin...