Brilliant speech by Sean Carroll. One of my favorite speakers.

I don't even know how I ended up on this channel. However, I am very happy it is here. Lets face it, there is a ton of silly and stupid stuff here on youtube and yeah I watch plenty of it. It is nice to find a channel to "counteract" all that. I am not at all a scholar, I am not in college or anything of the sort but on occasion I feel the need to learn a little bit about something new and it is so cool to find lectures like this online as there is nothing remotely like this where I live.

On the presenter here and topic it was a fantastic lecture and presented in a way that even someone with just basic education and understanding can at least get a grasp on. I may not FULLY understand it but I can comprehend enough of it to enjoy it and not feel like I am listening to some alien language.

This is absolutely great.

Amazing and important book.

Fantastic lecture!!

@Mr88playmaker did you read what I said? Gene duplication, then DIFFERENTIATION! You copy existing information so you have a new template, once you change the function you have new information. For example, say a system contains one protein. After duplication it can have two proteins, it doesn't do anything new. But once differentiation occurs, through (for example) a point mutation than the system can perform a new, possibly more complex, function.

Try this on for size Sean B. Carroll - "Evolution Revolution" by James R. Hefner

Information cannot exist without the necessary prerequisites; mainly matter, energy, time and space.

@Mr88playmaker both codes are known to increase in information by natural selection. Restating your conclusion will not make it true, you have to support it, and respond to objections. As it stands every science contradicts you (physics and chemistry allow energy, not "mind-stuff", to increase information, biology and information theory use selection). When we look at the mind we see the same principles, thinking requires energy (the nervous system uses about a third of the energy in humans).

Self-aligning crystals structures speak their own language and the science of chemistry gives us the origin of that language. There is no reason to assume that the science of biology cannot give us the origin of life's language in the same manner.

@Mr88playmaker there is no definition of information where that statement is true. I'm sure you've heard of gene duplication, and differentiation (since you must have been told a thousand times on the internet), where a gene is copied, than the copy changes to perform a new function. New function, new information. Both are easily explained. And yes, someone did get the Nobel Prize for this (Physiology and Medicine 1983, but only for one of many ways this can happen).

@Mr88playmaker, also see the ev program by Thomas Schneider

Watching 48:08

@Mr88playmaker maybe it took intelligence. But we are still learning how that intelligence works,.

@Mr88playmaker 1) "Genetic code is symbolic information": wrong, DNA is a sequence of molecules that gets translated into proteins (through RNA) and copied. 2)If true, it's irrelevant to DNA, and would require ribosomes and polymerases to be intelligent 3)Ok, again, DNA has no meaning, it just creates something with a function, if it had a meaning, we would need polymerases and ribosomes with MINDs. Only we assign meaning to DNA, but that meaning is not intrinsic.

@Mr88playmaker The genetic code is a language, now? Is it French? It's french, isn't it?

@Mr88playmaker DNA is not a language, it is simply a molecule which replicates itself, shares a correspondence with a similar nucleic acid polymer and which ultimately directs the formation of proteins. There are no written instructions; the molecules interact solely through their physical characteristics. Furthermore, it is a strange language indeed when millions of variations on one "word" written in RNA all "translate" into the same "word" written in amino acids

@Mr88playmaker Ok, but the genetic code isn't any closer to HTML than it is to French. The code is just 'three bases in, one amino acid out'. It's not anything you could say anything meaningful with, which is why I made fun of you for calling it a language.

@Mr88playmaker If a language has an intended purpose then DNA isn't one. Evolution and, by extension, DNA, is not purposive, it has no volition. It simply exists like crystals or sedimentary rocks. If there is any purpose in life it's because we chose to give it one. Evolution is a natural process like the tides, which is why 'The Blind Watchmaker' is a great metaphor but it's only a metaphor and 'language' as a description of DNA is only metaphor.

@Mr88playmaker I should have stated the science of abiogenesis instead of Biology. You are aware that the genetic code is composed of chemicals right? Why do you presume that information requires an intelligent mind when you can present no evidence that it does? Why do you presume meaning when there's no evidence that a meaning is required. You seem to be throwing a bunch of extra unsupported presumptions into your conclusions.