Re: THE $10 MILLION PRIZE FOR PROOF EVOLUTION 2.0

On 19/03/2024 20:26, John Harshman wrote:

On 3/19/24 11:29 AM, Ernest Major wrote:

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

erik simpson <eastside.erik@gmail.com> writes:
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On 3/19/24 10:06 AM, Richmond wrote:

Ron Dean <rondean-noreply@gmail.com> writes:
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THIS IS A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME WEALTHY. A $10,000.000 PRIZE.
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IF EVOLUTION IS A REALITY OF NATURE.  THERE IS NO REASON FOR SOMEONE
_NOT_ TO WIN THIS PRIZE.
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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.
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The judges are: George Church. Denis Noble, Michael Ruse
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https://evo2.org/theprize/

What do you mean by code? Like a dress code?
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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
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The usual "atheists vs. ID proponents" are featured.

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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.
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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.)
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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.

 Now there's an oxymoron.

For a parallel, you can cause crystals to form spontaneously - dissolve in hot water, and allow to cool slowly.

 

Ron Dean may have provided the wrong link. If my memory serves me correctly there's a creationist "prize" on superficially similar lines.
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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).
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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.
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--
alias Ernest Major