rationalskepticism.org

scherado wrote:

Regina wrote:...
Maybe you should try and relax a bit? It's always a bad, bad sign when people start referring to themselves in the third person.

Well, if you don't think that the question of the origin of the well-understood inheritance mechanism is what's "missing", then you and I have nothing to discuss.

Inheritance in its most general and abstract terms is only the retention of reactant structures in the product environment. If you've picked some other referent, then you don't understand why your kids don't look just like you or their mother, but still, hopefully, have cute little retrousé noses and ears that aren't too big and floppy. Those ears and noses are merely the products of a long series of chemical reactions, and not a manifestation of the miraculous. If molecular structure is a mystery to you, that doesn't mean it's a miracle.

There's nothing magical about a chemical reaction that produces species of its reactants as products. You may not care to see it that way, but it's a start for you. The fact that a reaction is producing its reactants in addition to consuming its reactants is an interesting feedback, and is detectable by spectroscopic methods. You should investigate this, if you feel up to it. Once you agree that such reactions can lead to complicated patterns of concentrations of the products and reactants as the reaction proceeds, you'll just appreciate complexity a little more. Once you've done that, you can have your second lesson in chemical complexity, wherein the reactions that involve self-replicating biomolecules are understandable in these terms. A self-replication includes the replication of structures within a molecule, and need not replicate the entire structure exactly; such reactions are observed, but you'll need to study some organic chemistry and biochemistry first.

Your problem is that you've replaced a (possibly simulated) deep ignorance of chemistry with a slack-jawed skepticism of "the inheritance mechanism" as a monolithic concept. Creationists try this tactic regularly, as if they're incapable of starting an investigation of how understandable or not understandable any process is, unless it's no more complicated than taking the wrapper off a stick of gum. A guy who's done all that programming should understand the bottom-up approach to solving a complex problem. There's a subtle difference between ignorance and feigned ignorance that some members of this forum are wise to, so you should be careful not to tip them off to which tactic you're trying. One tip-off is going to be how much effort you put into responding to posts that genuinely try to educate you (assuming you're anywhere nearly as ignorant about chemistry as you are portraying yourself to be).

Regina wrote:Exchanging "opinions" on stuff people aren't experts in is a popular enterprise, especially on the internet, but nonetheless a waste of time and a surefire way of embarrassing oneself in the eyes of experts in the relevant field.

Take care, scherado, and don't assume no one here knows what they're talking about, or that nobody anywhere knows anything about it. The Dunning-Kruger card was sure to be played sooner or later. I mean, for awhile it looked as if you were interested in molecular-level accuracy.