cypress

It is including inputs and outputs as is proper. If you were asked to explain how and why the entropy of the contents of an airtight refrigerator changed, are you justified ignoring, that is not describing or even mentioning, this heat flux?

Hello everyone,

 

I have a very poor understanding in this area.

 

1. In gel electrophoresis, let's say I used many DNA fragments.Then I used a filter paper, and used a probe to detect a specific DNA fragment. Then the pictures you see of electrophoresis, is it this filter paper you see, I mean you can not see the position of fragments in the machine right. Also does this filter paper, exactly mimic the positions of fragments in electrophoresis. Please excuse the stupidity.

I don't think I understand your question. Gel electrophoresis and filter paper electrophoresis are distinct as far as I know so I don't understand use of a filter paper unless you mean you use the gel process as an initial method to get rough separation and then the filter paper process to more finely separate a grouping of fragments from the gel process. Is this what you mean?

2. Gel electrophoresis can be used to measure the length of the DNA accurately. Ok if have standard pieces of known size you can do this, but I still don't get how this works. I mean how can the distance of a fragment exactly give the size of the molecule. In electrophoresis particles with different sizes can end up at the same place due to other factors like charge and resistance. So even if you have fragments with known size how does this work.

It is not exact but it is often very accurate. You are correct that there are several factors in play. One significant issue for example is dealing with molecular configurations that can form tertiary shapes due to hydrogen cross bonding. The key to effective and accurate sorting is in performing the process with different solvents and other agents to effect differences in the fragments that allow for correct conclusions when all the results are compared and contrasted.

Good thing the shooter wasn't a Muslim, then it would suddenly be terrorism.

What an impertinent thing to say. Terrorism is defined by the motives of the perpetrator, not the religion one subscribes to. To say such a thing seems to promote stereotyping and the rhetoric issue raised by the op. Your comments seem to confirm the concerns expressed in tis thread.

A system that is not isolated must have inputs or outputs.

Your redefined refrigerator is now a close system that is not isolated, in contrast to your previous definition where you incorrectly claimed it was closed when it was in fact an open system.

If you expand the system so that it has no inputs and outputs, as you are doing, you have instead of the original system a universe.

The system I am using is as you have redefined. The redefined system is the contents of a sealed refrigerator box (not even the entire refrigerator much less the entire universe). It is a closed, non-isolated system with heat flux crossing the boundary. I have been consistent about this definition ever since you redefined it. When considering what happens to net entropy, I include the contents of the refrigerator and the heat flux crossing the boundary of the system. The net entropy change is greater than zero in this example. You are incorrect.

I'll define an even more specific problem that even you would be ashamed to try to change under the premise of it not accounting for the fluxes. Here goes:

Consider a closed, isolated system U consisting of systems A and B. System A is 1 liter of water at 100 C at time 0, contained in a container thin enough to be negligible for the purposes of this problem. System B consists of 1000 liters of water at 0 C at time 0. There is heat transfer between systems A and B, which proceeds until equilibrium. Calculate: 1) the entropy change of system A from time 0 til equilibrium. 2) the entropy change of system B from time 0 til equilibrium. 3) the entropy change of system U from time 0 til equilibrium.

 

As you're so fond of pointing out, the entropy of system U and of B will increase. But as I've been trying to tell you, the entropy of system A will decrease. Feel free to calculate it out if you don't believe me. And since I included for you everything you need to account for all the fluxes, instead of telling you you can do so if you like and leaving that up to you, I don't see how you can accuse me of ignoring the fluxes and keep a straight face with this one.

1. Like the regrigerator contents, system A is closed but not isolated. There is a heat flux crossing the boundary of A. The net entropy of system A including the heat flux is positive.
   
2. System B is also closed but not isolated. The same heat flux leaving A is entering B so the entropy of this flux is the same magnitude but has the opposite sign. The net entropy of B including the heat flux is positive.
   
3. U is a closed and isolated system of A and B. Net entropy for U is the sum of the net entropy for A and B (including the heat fluxes) which are both positive so net entropy for U is also positive.
   

A plant can reduce the local entropy, using sunlight as the energy source. Chemoautotrophs can do the same with chemicals. When I used PCR to copy DNA strands, I used a rather crude heat engine (by cycling the temperature) to separate the strands of DNA; in nature thermal vents can do similarly. There are many more potential sources of energy that can be used to reduce entropy. It helps to understand what entropy means though.

As you seem to be having difficulty with the previous simple examples, I don't think it would be constructive traipse into these just yet.

I'm also interested in your own thoughts about this. Do you think the DNA from living creatures contain information? Is there any evidence that DNA from living creatures contains information?

If we could stay on the previous points for a bit longer I will come back to this, please though answer this question posed of you:

If your claim is that abiogenesis and evolution as an explanation for all biological diversity proceed by processes similar to the heat pump example then please describe for me the thermal and information and molecular order imported by way of fluxes into the chemic and biological system.

Hi cypress, thanks for your reply! I am still slightly confused though... If ionic charge is the biggest influence, why then does Cs+ have a larger ionic diameter than F-?

Fluorine has one fewer set of orbitals so now four fewer verses chlorine's three fewer. Although the effect of orbitals is less than the effect of ionic charges, eventually with enough of a difference anything will win out. With enough of them, ants can run you out of your home, right?

I think studying one of these diagrams is a good way to better understand the patterns of behavior you are discovering.

Realize that these are patterns of chemic behaviors based on many chemic laws but these patterns of behaviors are not the laws themselves. There are several competing laws in play with chemic behaviors. Laws are consistent but when competing laws are in play then you get patterns that are generally but not always consistent. Try to make a distinction between observations that are based on a single or non competing chemic law or property and patterns of characteristics such as ionic radius.

A materialist believes in the laws of conservation of matter and energy. Beginnings don't have to enter into it.

Yes, that is a clever way to cover for the double standard, but does nothing to address the infinite recursion. It is a non answer. The scientific answer would be that it is unknown how matter and energy came into existence in the first place but some assume it always has been in one form or another. Current evidence indicates that the matter in this universe had a beginning in a singularity but the first and final cause is beyond our means to explore. Your response is an example of how many atheists apply double standards.

You opened the door to this when you equated materialism with atheism many posts back.

When I noted that the group of atheists that don't fight fair seem to overwhelmingly overextend materialistic arguments, you admonished it as an off topic post. Are you going to remove that admonishment? Since you are no longer moderating this thread, I will instead stick to the site rules. Moontonman, you are welcome to start a new thread.

But if Third World countries withheld their supplies of raw materials (the way the OPEC countries have done with oil, for example), they could adjust the supply/demand relationship to make us poor and themselves rich, just as the oil producing nations in the 1930s were poor while the First World was rich. The issue can't be resolved by just pointing to the laws of supply and demand, but has to be considered in light of the deeper question why nations do not have the geopolitical power to exploit their natural resources to put other nations at a disadvantage. The main thumb on the scale of the supply-and-demand relation is military power.

Nonsense. Opec's rise in monetary influence was not supported or enabled by military power.

Cypress: The proper answer to your point is to note that at least at the final stage of any argument for the existence of God, the theist must be willing to have resort to positing the existence of something immaterial -- in this case, God.

Nonsense. The theist making an evidence based argument would not ever posit something that cannot be supported by evidence, and there is no need to do so.

But the proper inferential move in such a case would always be to await the further possibility of a materialistic explanation, for all the reasons specified above (the incongruity of introducing a new type of explanatory ontology, the essential limitlessness of immaterial hypotheses, the indiscipline of admitting non-testable, non-publicly displayable, non-repeatable, non-positivistic, non-operationally specifiable entites, with all the risks of false inferential steps they introduce, etc.).

The proper move would be to leave all possible options open that are consistent with evidence but also note that the explanation that is most congruent with available evidence should be the one that is favored. Those like you who favor prior commitments (in your case an obvious bias to materialism) don't fight fair.

So no matter how far the theistically inclined reasoner could go, he would always at the last step either have to violate the canons of secure inference or stop before positing a God.

False, since a final cause escapes both the theist and atheist, neither side holds an advantage on this point. The atheist who favors materialism as you seem to actually has the more severe issue with recursion since all we know about material tells us it must have had a beginning, and thus cannot be a final cause. Your failure to address this is yet another way the atheist does not fight fair.

It actually is unless you want to redefine the supernatural as being material. Supernatural, by definition, is outside the confines of science.

The truth of my statement does not depend on the definition of supernatural. Theists make science based and evidence based arguments. Your claim is false and yet another example of how atheists don't fight fair.

Cypress, it has been asked several times in this thread to provide a theistic explanation for anything in the natural world that is more useful than a science explanation. so far you have skipped all around it but not provided any such example. I can provide a great many scientific explanations of natural phenomena that work quite well but none from theistic explanations, care to address this?

The question is an off topic diversion and thus a red herring. I am sorry but on this site the rules are clear. The topic here is whether or not atheists and theists fight fair. I note that neither side fights fair when they overextend their position beyond what the evidence can explain. Your claim that you can provide a great many scientific explanations is yet another example of the way many atheists don't fight fair. You are begging the question by implying that science is the exclusive providence of atheists when it is in fact not.

Why is it that the raw materials which are bought from Third World countries to make manufactured goods in First World Countries have historically been so inexpensive, while the finished products from the First World are so expensive? What determines the real price ratio between say the Costa Rican bananas that feed the car factory workers in Germany so that they have enough kilocalories of strength to produce a car and the sale price of the finished car when it is exported back to Costa Rica?

Simple, supply and demand which in turn is influenced by scarcity of the good, and the degree to which that good can be further leveraged for other goods. Raw materials compete for price based on what price all other holder of that same raw material is willing to trade it for and what buyers are willing to offer. Finished goods are desirable worldwide and will also have a price that reflects that combined desirability.

If this ratio were adjusted to give more value to what is produced in the Third World vis a vis what is produced in the First World, we would be living in shanty towns and they would be living in their own Manhattans. But what keeps the ratios unfavorable to the Third World?

Nonsense. The ratio is set by supply and demand. If raw material becomes more scarce, those in societies that value productivity would find local alternatives to these raw goods and those societies will remain living in Manhattans. The only practical solution to this reality is for third world contries to retool their social norms so that productivity and effective leadership is valued.

Some would say it is the American Navy (and associated instruments of military and geopolitical power) prowling the seas which ultimately provides at least the threat of the ultimate use of force to keep this ratio working in our favor. When things get out of hand, such as when Allende's socialist government in Chile threatened to overtax or nationalize the U.S. copper mines, or when Arbenz's government threatened to nationalize United Fruit Company's holdings, the CIA or the U.S. military intervene to ensure that the flow of wealth from the Third to the First World is not interrupted.

In these two examples, intervention seems warranted to uphold the legal agreements that were made surrounding ownership and operation of these enterprises. The proper and legal process would be for the socialist governments to buy these enterprises out at fair market value if they wish to nationalize them.

There is also an undeniable aspect of discouragement which explains part of the problem of Third World poverty. I personally witnessed a United Nations project in St. Lucia which constructed a system of pipes to bring fresh water down from a mountainside to some villages in the valley. This pipe system required minimal maintenance, and the local people were trained in how to perform this simple task. By having this pipe system, the women of the villages would no longer have to spend the entire day, every day, walking up and down the mountainside to carry water to the valley below in buckets.

 

Within a few months of the U.N. engineers leaving the island, the local population lost the self-discipline to maintain the water piping system, which then collapsed, resulting in the villagers once again having to go up and down the mountainside forever to get their water.

I would say this is an excellent example of the difference in social norms. The aqua duct was a productivity enhancer that can improve the standard of living for all who are able to use it. Yet this society did not perceive the value to maintaining it. You call it discouragement, I call it a social norm that does not value productivity.

Yet you are still moving the goal post because what you are arguing is evidence based arguments, which despite your claims, are not the exclusive domain of atheism, vs. unsupported claims, which are not the exclusive domain of theists. You are arguing a different topic than this thread. You are arguing evidence vs. conjecture, but the theists who fight fair do use an evidence based approach although you refuse to acknowledge that fact and the atheists who don't fight fair don't use an evidence based approach.

The ionic charge has the biggest influence since excess of electrons will cause the outer ones to be held loosely and a shortage will cause the remaining electrons to be held much more tightly. Next greatest influence is the number of layers, then the number of protons.

Cs+ has a smaller ionic diameter because its possitive charge and the Cl- negative charge together override the other considerations.

Cypress, I do not understand your terminology much less your arguments, it's quite possible I'm just not bright enough to understand... but I don't think so. I think you have a distorted understanding of what information is... Information is a human concept, it only has meaning to a human brain, the shapes, order and arrangement of those shapes is only information to a human, the ocean has no concept of anything it is doing, the ocean is a random process that acts randomly on objects, this morning is might be pieces of brick, tomorrow olive snail shells, next week something else. The surf is in constant flux only our snap shots of it look like order, life is the same way, only our snap shots of it look like order, in reality it's a flux of processes that build upon each other to create a complexity we label information...

False, information exists independently of the human mind. Have a look at how information is measured in modern cosmology. Information is probability reduction. Information exists wherever probability is reduced.

Since you have agreed that the beach system progresses over time with no reduction in probability, you are stating that the beach system does not increase information content over time. Also you argue that just as the beach system we have discussed does not contain information, biological systems do not contain information. You argue that life from non-life did not increase information content and you argue that the DNA code is not information. Is this a correct representation of your argument?

Only inferences based on material hypotheses yield the kind of results which are testable and satisfy positivistic criteria of evidence.

The mind is a prime cause for many testable and positivistic outcomes and yet the mind has not been shown to have a material only source and to be material only. Your claim is false.

In addition you once again have moved the goal post and failed to address the reality that many atheists don't follow this strict pattern. Those atheists who don't fight fair extend their conclusions well beyond what can be demonstrated by tests and evidence. Many even admit what they do; they admit that their conclusions are based on prior commitments.

moontonman, Your post seems to have been an elaboration of my brief description but I don't see any substantive error in my abbreviated one. Do you have any disagreement with the progression of probability of the discrete states of the beach system over time? Do you agree that over time the probability of the orientation of the discrete state of beach particles increases over time? If you disagree please explain in precise terms how probability changes over time.

If so, is it your claim that abiogenesis and evolution as an explanation for all biological diversity proceeds by processes that also result in outcomes that have increased probability of the discrete states just as the beach example?

Skeptic, does the heat flux and therefore thermal entropy change crossing the boundary of a system have any bearing on the balance of the system? Can the entropy of the balance of the system you described change without this or a similar flux? If you were asked to explain how and why the entropy of the contents of an airtight refrigerator changed, are you justified ignoring, that is not describing or even mentioning, this heat flux?

If your claim is that abiogenesis and evolution as an explanation for all biological diversity proceed by processes similar to the heat pump example then please describe for me the thermal and information and molecular order imported by way of fluxes into the chemic and biological system.

What is the cause of low productivity in poor countries? For example, is it their cultures or because of biologically 'retarded' people living in these countries and not contributing (i.e. through a lack of education, food etc)? Or is it because some countries keep taking away resources from certain other countries, leaving them with nothing to export in exchange for money to the rest of the world? Or is it all these reasons? If it is, then what is the "root of the reason"? What caused all these reasons to form in the first place?

The primary cause seems to be socio-political. A combination of culture and perhaps a long history of leadership that together values goals that are inconsistent with wholesale raises in society productivity. Low productivity is the immediate cause of poverty. Failure by society and leadership together to value productivity is the final cause. The drivers behind this failure are of course many and complex.

Why is it that the US dollar is so strong while the currency in third world countries are weaker? What makes a particular country's currency "strong" and another's "weak"?

Economic productivity. Producing things of value that people through out the world would like to trade other things of value is what makes a nations unit of economic activity strong.

Is the cause of "low productivity" because of negligent irresponsible corrupt goverments, which rule poor countries with an iron-fist? If so, what stops a nation from becoming less corrupt?

Leadership has a role in enabling productivity and corrupt government officials interested primarily in enriching their own lives on the backs of the people certainly don't help. Only society as a whole can encourage and insist the government leadership do their job properly.

How did the developed nations of the world become less corrupt than the current developing countries of the world? What's the psychological reasoning for why developed countries are more "productive" now? How did they become more "productive"? What gave these societies' an edge in forming more prosperous nations than the developing countries?

Social norms encouraged and required strong and fair leadership and self reliance. Those concepts where core values of society, and so society would not tolerate poor leadership and did not reward low productivity.

And, hypothetically, if we were to create a new nation in Mars, what would we do to ensure that it becomes a financially wealthy and prosperous nation? What are the people in the poor countries of the world doing wrong at the moment? I really want to know how the world became how it is now, how both developed and poor nations were created.

Individuals have to have a desire and responsibility to be productive, and a belief that leadership is accountable to society as a whole. Send people who have those beliefs. Poor countries will likely remain poor so long as social norms remain stagnant.

I must be.

 

It sounds like you're telling me that fixing a known error is illegal. You just have to live with it, as if the act of putting it on paper makes it correct, and you must proceed from that point as if it were the truth. That's hard to believe. It's also hard to reconcile with reports of "restated earnings" I hear from time to time after a company has found an error in an audit.

The act of making errors in deliverables involving contracts surrounding matters of substance is often illegal, and discovering and reporting the error often results in legal fines. Correcting the error is not illegal but it is a requirement. Restated business performance reports in my business often involves a fine for the error.

John seems to be making a fair point that because the interpretation of this information has significant implications, it is critical that the report be correct and that those who provide it exercise due diligence in the process of reporting and describing the implications.

Cypress: There's nothing metaphysical in the atheist's assertion that the entire universe is material, since that assertion is simply based on induction from all the observable empirical evidence collected so far.

Straw man argument. I clearly referred to the source or cause of this material. Many atheists make bold claims about the source and cause of the material, the universe and the the configuration of much of this material including the configuration that results in life. You changed the claim to make it seem like I was referring only to the material itself.

Only someone asserting, as the theists do, that there are non-physical entities has a high burden of proof to meet for that statement, given that it is inconsistent with the natural extension of induction from all the cases observed so far.

Those who assert as many atheists do, that there is a material explanation for this universe, that material only causes are responsible for the configuration of this universe and life in it, also have a high burden of proof to meet for these statements. Many attempt to make a proof, but all attempts have failed.

 

To that, we have given many many examples where change occurs without direction, but in hind sight appears directed, and if a presupposition that change that appears directed, must be directed, then you could never understand how these changes could occur without direction. Such as stone frost/thaw circles, sorting of pebbles by waves or river curents, etc.

 

These are undirected activities with a random element, but due to deteminisitic processes that act as a selection/sorting process, the random variations are arranged as if to a purpose and by direction.

 

This is our argument, that there exist processes that give the appearence of direction and purpose, but are not infact directed. As there are examples that you agrtee qwith that show this property, then what is your objection to the fact that evolution, which shares these same basic properties (random inputs with deterministic selections of inputs) is also one of these systems. You don't seem to have an objection the the existance of these types of systems, only that evolution (which has the basic properties of these kinds of system) is not one of them, for no other reason than it doesn't fit your beliefs.

Alright let's explore this idea.

You claim that abiogenesis and evolutionary processes work the same way these other processes work. Four different examples have been given and I have suggested that none of these processes fit the posited models of abiogenesis and evolution in deriving all observed diversity .

Skeptic provided a heat pump / heat transfer example where heat flux was removed from a system. This relies on random brownian motion and energy transfer in particle collisions. In this process there is a net thermal entropy increase.

The second example is in growth of crystals. This process involves random processes of brownian motion and deterministic processes involving electric forces between the atoms/molecules such that the probability of the orientation of discrete molecule and atom positions is unchanged as the crystals grow. Also like the heat pump example the there is heat flux removed as the solid forms. Therefore net entropy again increases.

The third example was of sorting of various sand and stone particles on a beach where again random processes provide movement and deterministic processes provide placement. Again, as the configurations of the discrete states change, the probability of these orientations do not decrease since deterministic processes dictate placement.

The final example was of growth, but since growth is managed and controlled by prescriptive information, growth is also a deterministic process that does not alter probability. Net thermal entropy of the system increases also for reasons previously explained.

Which of these examples specifically does evolutionary processes most closely follow? Which process specifically does abiogenesis most closely mimic?

What are the differences and how do those differences influence the progression of probability of the discrete states?

Sodium acetate heating pads have very high heat capacity due to the trihydrate phase change that takes place at about 58 degrees C. The same principle as ice only in opposite. You can use these or other similar material that solidifies at the desired temperature.

but since non-scientific methods of inquiry and theory-construction do not follow this discipline, they are just not as reliable as scientific thinking. So any 'truths' they come up with will always be defective relative to the safest standards of inference we know, as well as according to the standards of inference we use in everyday life.

How can you objectively establish the truth of these statements?

You would not buy land in Flordia from me on the basis of a feeling, an intuition, a belief, or a sense of the inner presence unto you of the reality of that parcel of land, but rather, you would require strict, positivist evidence that the land was real, that I owned it, and that I could legally transfer it to you unencumbered.

Thanks for making my point with these excellent examples of truths from non-scientific disciplines. These are not scientific tests and not scientific methods. These are established by historical documents and eyewitness notaries and social norms. Theists also rely on scientific methods, historical documentation, eyewitnesses and social norms. Atheist debaters mischaracterize their opponent and thus don't fight fair when they deny this.

The fact that we ALWAYS reason this way except in the special case when we are talking about religious belief indicates that our ordinary practice of truth-seeking impeaches the validity of religious truth-seeking.

Not all atheists ALWAYS reason this way, and MANY theists do use this same reasoning processes. I am not an atheist and I reason the way you describe, but I find many atheists making truth claims based on unsupported belief and prior commitments as opposed to reason and logic.

Second, while some atheistis might adopt metaphysical world views, the key issue is whether they have to by virtue of their atheistic beliefs.

The fact that they do is enough for this thread.

Since atheists only have to adopt the positivistic methodology, and make existence posits only on the basis of empirical evidence, mathematical interpretations of that evidence, and the minimal demands of coherence of the theory-structure built on that evidence, they are not naturally or inevitably committed to any metaphysical assumptions, as theists are by virtue of the defective relation between the kind of evidence they use and the ambitious hypotheses they affirm.

Both atheists and theist construct defective relations between evidence and conclusions, but neither group need to. A theist can adopt positivistic methodology and make make existence posits solely on empirical evidence and so forth. The dispute is always about what the evidence means. Theists observe and sense evidence. They simply reach different conclusions about what the evidence means. this dispute is not about the evidence it is about how and why the evidence came to be the way it is.

It would be a mistake to imagine that atheists are doing anything metaphysical by denying the existence of God even without having conducted an exhaustive inventory of everything in the universe to demonstrate that he is nowhere to be found.

Only some atheists make claims that are unwarranted. Only some have metaphysical beliefs based on prior commitments.

If it were to be regarded as metaphysical to say that there is no God unless his non-existence were proved by direct empirical evidence, then we would be forced actively to maintain the possibility that the Tooth Fairy is real.

I don't make this claim. Your example is a straw man.

The fact is that we can assert with confidence that extraordinary things do not exist unless there is very good evidence to prove them; we don't have to disprove them.

Nor do I make this claim. I have not seem anyone ask you to disprove anything. You are begging the question.

However many atheists do assert with confidence that the universe and everything in it has a material only source. This claim is metaphysical and lacks empirical support. It is certainly not following the method you describe.

I'm not sure what your point is marat. Atheists and theists make use of scientific reasoning from time to time and when it is applied appropriately it can explain what happens under known conditions. But there are many lines of questions that science is not presently equipped to answer and some, by their nature, can never be adequately answered by the scientific method.

Furthermore in describing what the theist is arguing and what a theist must do in that argument, your bias is to place the theist in the worst possible position and in doing so this is another way that many atheists don't fight fair. Why should the theist be required to make a scientific argument for a line of questioning that you know very well cannot be answered by science? Why not instead ask the theist to make scientific argument only for the physical tenets and a philosophical argument for the metaphysical tenets?

It is also incorrect to claim that the atheist remains exclusively in the realm of scientific inquiry. Many atheists hold to a wolrdview that is not supported by scientific knowledge. The worldview many hold to is metaphysical it and is supported only by belief, only by a prior commitment.

Adopting the seven rules of careful reasoning I mentioned earlier is not just a matter of taste but is essential if you want to think carefully and not posit more than the data will bear. Since religion doesn't follow those rules, it can only be careless in its inferences. And since we reject this type of carelessness in our everyday reasoning, our normal, rational behavior impeaches our ability sincerely to endorse any religious system.

Strictly adopting the seven rules would only answer questions of what particular physical events proceeded but would not answer how some event came to be the way it is or why. Historical sciences would be nearly impossible if constrained by these rules. Atheists who adopt your suggested aproach would therefore be silent on the question of a creator. Since many atheists are not silent, is it fair to say they are overstepping scientific reasoning?

How does your entropy-information issue deal with the recent work with laboratory-evolved RNA enzymes? And their ability to rapidily evolve within hours? There are even "molecular speciation" experiments with competing ribozymes exploring new niches and adapting to their environments. Lots of mutations and new function evolving rapidly within a single day.

 

Specifically, I'm referring to the continuous in vitro evolution/serial transfer/micro-fluidics experiments of Gerald Joyce and others.

Good question. I'll look into it. Perhaps you might also suggest implications.