Monkeys Give a Hoot notes the folllowing:

"Watch out!" It's a simple phrase, but researchers have long debated whether nonhuman primates use something like it. A new study indicates that they do: Even when not threatened themselves, African blue monkeys warn neighbors of nearby predators. However, some skeptics maintain that the animals are acting out of fear, not concern for others.

The short article about monkey alarms concludes with this paragraph:

But Gregory Radick, a science historian who writes on primate language at the University of Leeds, U.K., finds the study's conclusions worth considering. He notes that although the monkey could be motivated by fear, it's still adjusting its alarm based on the threat that's posed to others. The jury may be out for quite some time, he says. "This kind of experiment is not easy to interpret, … and that leaves room for other people to throw some doubt on the experiment's meaning."

Experimental results are not always easy to interpret. Sometimes interpretations can be multiple and the choice among them dictated by prevailing ideas. The amino acid chirality mystery shows how scientific data can be interpreted. From the blog entry:

So the mystery is reduced to that of why at some point in time there were many more L amino acids than the R form. It has been shown that amino acids can form spontaneously from inorganic materias under some conditions (the Miller-Urey experiments demonstrated this.) However, one would expect equal amounts of R and L amino acids under such circumstances.

Experimental evidence indicates earthly conditions give rise to racemic amino acid mixtures. If life originated on earth, as a consequence of dysteleological chemical reactions, one would expect a preponderence of L amino acids- the opposite of what is suggested by the evidence. So how is this to be interpreted? There are several options. We could have interpreted the data as indicating that the dysteleological assumption is wrong. Sure. Fat chance bub. Or we could adopt the old OOL standby and interpret the evidence as indicating the data is incomplete. Eventually new data will show that generating unbalanced amino acid mixtures on earth really was feasible. Then there is the third option. Amino acids came to earth from extra-terrestrial sources. That interpretation currently holds the favored ground. Why? Another quote:

But there's another way out, because we know that in fact amino acids can form in interstellar space, since they were found in parts of the Murchison meteorite (and later others) that were uncontaminated with Earthly material. Furthermore, there's one definite way that amino acids which existed originally in an equal mixture of L and R forms on a chunk of rock hurtling through space could have their proportion tilted in one direction or the other:

The theoretical means by which unequal amounts of left and right-handed amino acids could have resulted is discussed. There are primary interpretations and secondary interpretations and both types are laden with assumptions. Amino acids can be degraded as well as generated. How long would an imbalance persist if newly generated amino acids on earth are of equal amounts? How long do theoretical models indicate it would take to utilize amino acids within arising life forms? Finally, how plausible and detailed are such models?

When you read the inevitable criticism of design concepts, which incorporate a science sez template, distinguish between beliefs predicated on interpretations of data and the data itself.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 7:29 am and is filed under Evidence, Origin of Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.