I wish to offer some observations regarding the recent Sic et Non blog post titled
Genetic Information is Not Itself Material.
Sic et Non (hereafter SEN) reads:
Professor Hubert P. Yockey (April 15, 1916 – January 31, 2016) was a physicist and an information theorist who worked under Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project as well as at the University of California at Berkeley.
One of his areas of concentration was the application of information theory to problems in biology; from 1974 onward, he published his writings in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. Yockey was very critical of the theory that life had originated in a kind of “primordial soup,” arguing instead that “the origin of life is unsolvable as a scientific problem.”
He died on January 31, 2016 at the age of 99.
SEN is clearly dependent on Wikipedia (the W source) here. W's entry on Yockey
reads, in part:
Professor Hubert P. Yockey (April 15, 1916 – January 31, 2016) was a physicist and information theorist.[1] He worked under Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project, and at the University of California, Berkeley.
He studied the application of information theory to problems in biology and published his conclusions in the Journal of Theoretical Biology from 1974 onwards. Yockey was very critical of the primordial soup theory of the origin of life, and believed that "the origin of life is unsolvable as a scientific problem."
He died on January 31, 2016 at the age of 99.[2]
SEN then quotes from a purported separate manuscript that I will call LID (short for Leap into the Dark) (we will examine the evidence for the existence of a separate LID manuscript at another time):
Here’s a brief passage from a very rough manuscript of mine that draws a bit upon Professor Yockey’s thought:
Hubert Yockey used a linguistic analogy to make the point that the information contained in the genetic code, although it is embodied in matter, is not itself material. It cannot be reduced to a chemical or physical property. He points out that the meaning of words or letter sequences, if they have any, is essentially arbitrary. It is determined by the natural language that they are seeking to represent, and is not an intrinsic property of the letters or their arrangement, let alone of the ink with which they may be printed on a page. For example, the letter sequence that spells out the English word hell means “bright” in German. Similarly, fern means “far,” while gift means “poison,” mist refers to manure, bald means “soon,” and boot means “boat.” The letter sequence singe represents, in German, the imperative verb “sing!” In French, pain denotes bread. Ballot refers to a bundle, coin means a “corner” or a “wedge,” and chair means “flesh.” Cent means “hundred” in French, whereas son means “his,” tire refers to the act of “pulling,” and ton means “your.”
SEN refers to a linguistic analogy used by Yockey. In my attempts to ascertain whether LID is directly dependent on Yockey rather than a secondary source in the paragraph above, I came across some evidence that LID is relying upon a heretofore unidentified source: Dean Overman,
A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization (note: neither SEN nor this passage from LID cite Overman). I will call this the O source or O.
O (pp. 37-38):
The information contained in the genetic code, like all information or messages, is not made of matter. Materialism does not explain the meaning in the code. The meaning is not a property of the arrangement of the symbols of alphabet of the code. The message or meaning in the genetic code is non-material and cannot be reduced to a physical or chemical property. Hubert Yockey, an erudite physicist who studied under J. Robert Oppenheimer at Berkeley and then worked with him on the Manhattan Project, uses the analogy among letters of the Roman alphabet and their meaning in the English, French and German languages to demonstrate the non-material nature of the messages and information in the genetic code:
. . . the meaning, if any, of words, that is, a sequence of letters is arbitrary. It is determined by the natural language and is not a property of the letters or their arrangement. For example, the English word “hell” means bright in German, “fern” means far, “gift” means poison, “bald” means soon, “boot” means boat, “singe” means sing. In French “pain” means bread, “ballot” means a bundle, “coin” means a corner or a wedge, “chair” means flesh, “cent” means hundred, “son” means his, “tire” means a pull, “ton” means your. This confusion of meaning goes as far as sentences. For example, “O singe fort!” has no meaning as a sentence in English, although each is an English word, yet in German it means “O sing on!” and in French it means “O strong monkey”. Like all messages, the life message is non-material but has an information content measurable in bits and bytes and plays the role, ascribed by vitalists, of an unmeasurable, metaphysical vital force without being ad hoc, romantic, spooky, contrary to the laws of physics or supernatural. Of course, like all messages, the genetic message, although non-material, must be recorded in matter or energy.
Some points of comparison:
LID: "It cannot be reduced to a chemical or physical property."
O: "The message or meaning in the genetic code is non-material and cannot be reduced to a physical or chemical property."
Comment: LID appears to have merely switched O’s order of words at the sentence's end.
LID: "He points out that the meaning of words or letter sequences, if they have any, is essentially arbitrary."
O (quoting Yockey [hereafter Y]): ". . . the meaning, if any, of words, that is, a sequence of letters is arbitrary."
Comment: Here, LID could be using either Y or O (quoting Y).
LID: "It is determined by the natural language that they are seeking to represent, and is not an intrinsic property of the letters or their arrangement, let alone of the ink with which they may be printed on a page."
O (quoting Y): "It is determined by the natural language and is not a property of the letters or their arrangement."
Comment: LID could be expanding on either Y or O (quoting Y).
LID: "For example, the letter sequence that spells out the English word hell means 'bright' in German."
O (quoting Y): "For example, the English word 'hell' means bright in German."
Comment: Minor differences here. Again, LID could be using either Y or O.
LID: "Similarly, fern means 'far,' while gift means 'poison,' mist refers to manure, bald means 'soon,' and boot means 'boat.'"
O (quoting Y): "...'fern' means far, 'gift' means poison, 'bald' means soon, 'boot' means boat,"
Comment: The careful reader will notice that LID added one German word--mist--to Y’s list (or Y’s list as cited by O) of examples. This represents a minor expansion.
LID: "The letter sequence singe represents, in German, the imperative verb 'sing!' In French, pain denotes bread. Ballot refers to a bundle, coin means a 'corner' or a 'wedge,' and chair means 'flesh.' Cent means 'hundred' in French, whereas son means 'his,' tire refers to the act of 'pulling,' and ton means 'your.'"
O: "...'singe' means sing. In French 'pain' means bread, 'ballot' means a bundle, 'coin' means a corner or a wedge, 'chair' means flesh, 'cent' means hundred, 'son' means his, 'tire' means a pull, 'ton' means your."
Comment: Again, minor differences.
LID then purports to quote Yockey’s words, citing an article of his published in
BioEssays in 1995. Given the relative inaccessibility of back issues of
BioEssays (I let my subscription expire three months ago) plus the fact that SEN/LID has previously used O without initial acknowledgment (see
here), I would suggest that LID is dependent on O here (which quotes the identical passage from Y) rather than the original Y.
LID:
For example, “O singe fort!” has no meaning as a sentence in English, although each is an English word, yet in German it means “O sing on!” and in French it means “O strong monkey”. Like all messages, the life message is non-material but has an information content measurable in bits and bytes and plays the role, ascribed by vitalists, of an unmeasurable, metaphysical vital force without being ad hoc, romantic, spooky, contrary to the laws of physics or supernatural. Of course, like all messages, the genetic message, although non-material, must be recorded in matter or energy.[1]
[1] Hubert Yockey, “Information in Bits and Bytes,” BioEssays 17 (1995): 85. [See original.]
One additional observation: Y's list of examples capitalizes "Gift" and "Boot" while O’s quotation of Y does not. Neither does LID. This would seem to lend support to the hypothesis that LID is dependent on O rather than Y.
“A scholar said he could not read the Book of Mormon, so we shouldn’t be shocked that scholars say the papyri don’t translate and/or relate to the Book of Abraham. Doesn’t change anything. It’s ancient and historical.” ~ Hanna Seariac