Posted on 03/05/2002 12:52:58 PM PST by Southack
There is a recurring claim among a certain group which goes along the lines of "software programs can self-form on their own if you leave enough computers on long enough" or "DNA will self-form given enough time" or even that a million monkeys typing randomly on a million keyboards for a million years will eventually produce the collected works of Shakespeare.
This mathematical proof goes a short distance toward showing in math what Nobel Prize winner Illya Prigogine first said in 1987 (see Order Out of Chaos), that the maximum possible "order" self-forming randomly in any system is the most improbable.
This particular math proof deals with the organized data in only the very first sentence of Hamlet self-forming. After one examines this proof, it should be readily apparent that even more complex forms of order, such as a short story, computer program, or DNA for a fox, are vastly more improbable.
So without further adue, here's the math:
Also are you going to tell us that the first living organism from which all descended was an amoeba with 600 odd billion DNA base pairs?
The reason why living matter can create order out of disorder, transform light into food, use minerals for chemical reactions, is that living beings are essentially machines. Matter itself is not a machine. It cannot grow, it cannot transform itself, it cannot reproduce itself. To argue that matter can order itself is ridiculous. Trees do not build houses, intelligent beings build houses. The air and water did not build the faces on Mt. Rushmore, intelligent beings did. Natural forces are only able to do simple work, like tearing things, breaking rocks to smitherenes, etc.
Why, of course - I don't just make this stuff up.
You seem to give the fine folks at TIGR some credibility - they provided the Mycoplasma genome facts that you quoted in #288. So, how about something from TIGR again - this time, on the size of amoeba genomes.
Also are you going to tell us that the first living organism from which all descended was an amoeba with 600 odd billion DNA base pairs?
I make no such claim. I merely question your claim that simpler organisms necessarily have simpler genomes. And I question it for good reason - it's completely bogus ;)
Evolutionists speak very loosely. What is a mutation? A change in an already existing gene. It is not a creation of a new gene. Changing a gene usually results in destruction of the individual, not in making it more fit for anything. The only mutations that may be helpful are small ones, such as those that may change the coloring of a bird to better fit and hide in an environment. Large changes, new functions, require new genes and that is almost impossible due to the extremely large number of random acts of creation of an entirely new sequence of DNA base pairs in creating an entirely new favorable function.
I also commend to Freepers his excellent short stories The Zahir and The Aleph.
Probably the best writer to come from South America in the 20th century.
--Boris
No, it doesn't.
What a brilliant refutation! I guess the reason is because you say so.
If you do not know what function the given set of random mutations is to achieve, then you cannot have any feedback, because the result cannot be tested until it is functional. That is why Dawking's statement that you can pick the right letters in the right position is nonsense. You do not know the right letter or what the right position is until the sentence (the new gene) is complete. Only then can evolutionist selection operate. Therefore there is no feedback which is what we were talking about.
A very interesting site. The URL reads: http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/3220/primates101.html
In other words, it is a personal site, totally devoid of any references. Totally devoid of any links supporting the ridiculous statements made in it. Totally devoid of credibility.
For decades even evolutionists have agreed that man did not descend from monkeys. Their new fallback position has been that man and monkeys "branched" some 5 million years ago from a common ancestor. Not that they have any proof of this, mind you, but they know that they can no longer sell Darwin's lie that man descended from monkeys. The proof against it is too overwhelming.
No, actually it's because it is so. For the reasons I outlined in the rest of that post.
If you do not know what function the given set of random mutations is to achieve, then you cannot have any feedback, because the result cannot be tested until it is functional. That is why Dawking's statement that you can pick the right letters in the right position is nonsense. You do not know the right letter or what the right position is until the sentence (the new gene) is complete. Only then can evolutionist selection operate. Therefore there is no feedback which is what we were talking about.
You're still anthropomorphizing. It's not about "me" making decisions, or anyone making decisions, or judgement calls, or testing results, or waiting for feedback. It's a blind force wherein traits that are adaptive are more likely to be passed along, and traits that are dysfunctional are less likely to be passed along to the next generation. Natural selection has no "will" or "desire", any more than gravity does. It's not that there's some mysterious intelligent force performing grand experiments by bringing about mutations. It just looks that way.
So, what you're doing is you're seeing the limitations of Dawkins's analogy, and assuming that those are limitations of the evolutionary process itself. They aren't - the blind watchmaker analogy is goal-driven, but evolution is not. The point that Dawkins wanted to demonstrate was about the selection mechanism, and how traits are passed along from generation to generation.
No, I never said DNA formation was random, that's what I was disputing. The questions you asked me had nothing to do with the point being discussed. You seemed to have missed the point entirely.
There certainly is a barrier to evolution, macro-evolution. For one thing there is no proof at all that macro-evolution has ever been observed or proven anywhere, anytime. Since macro-evolution has not been observed in nature which is the realm where science operates, the claims of evolutionists that man descended from simple single celled creatures is not science, it is just a hypothesis, an unproven hypothesis.
[You:] Then why are there any genetic "diseases" that last beyond one generation?
There are very few genetic diseases which manifest themselves in childhood. Once an individual reaches breeding age, natural selection works only imperfectly.
Also, some genetic diseases are also adaptive in certain environments; sickle-cell anemia is the classic example.
Then how does a disordered cloud of water vapor form millions of perfectly six-pointed snowflakes?
The air and water did not build the faces on Mt. Rushmore, intelligent beings did.
Who built the Old Man of the Mountains?
JennyP posted this one yesterday, and it's quite nice.
Check out: Development of homochiral peptide replicators.
Is that sucker alive or not? (P.S., I've had trouble with the NASA link this morning; try back later and it may be back up.)
The usual caveat applies. The whale series could turn into the horse series redux, in that we could get a whole lot more fossils later which outline the tree a lot better. That might well force us to move some previously indentified "ancestors" into the "great great uncle" bin. You can't tell if a fossil is a real ancestor, but you can certainly tell if it's suggestive of what such ancestor might have been.
Salt crystals from seawater? Snowflakes from water vapor?
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