A Second Mathematical Proof Against Evolution [AKA - Million Monkeys Can't Type Shakespeare]

This is part two of the famous "Million Monkeys Typing On Keyboards for a Million Years Could Produce The Works of Shakespeare" - Debunked Mathematically.

For the Thread that inadvertently kicked started these mathematical discussions, Click Here

"Sorry, this is not a mathematical proof. Any stats man worth his salt could rip this to shreds. The monkey analogy holds true if you assume an infinite universe. The author extrapolates data and predicts an outcome without considering the concept of infinity."

The author discussed your complaint above at length in his article. Sadly, you'd have to read it to know that, however...

You would probably be offended if I asked you to explain the origin of God. Attributing the nature of nature to yet another entity does not explain anything. First causes are unexplained. Live with it.

No, I'm not offended. Both an eternally self-existent intelligent personal being which is capable of bring into existence a finite universe and an infinite, impersonal universe which brought, by chance, personal, human intelligence into being and which, according to St. Carlos Sagan, is all there is, was, or ever shall be (world without end, amen) are inexplicable in terms of origins. What is less than inexplicable is which is a better explanation of what we actually (think) we see out there. Some people say an intelligent being. Some people say material determinism. The latter call the former religious. The former acknowledge this. The latter, though, for the most part, don't realize that their cosmological certainty is no less a matter of unprovable presuppositions than the religious. It's just a place they'd rather start. And their reasons for wanting to start there are no less religious than those of the self-acknowledged religious.

The "laws of nature" in fact create the order: the natural progression of "random" chemical interactions creates progressively more and more complex chemicals, with each round of interactions building on those that went before, one step back and two forward.

Complex molecules emerge, and then self-replicating complex molecules, and at that point the selection pressures accelerate because now each successive generation doesn't even need to take the step back.

Nice statement of the current dogma, but this all takes place within what volume and what degree of permeability?

Once you read and understand all three linked articles and comments, you might discern that the author is discussing the probability of DATA being stored, not chemicals reacting with each other.

If the author claims that the proof show evolution is impossible he has to take into into account how the properties of the chemicals affect the data.

Once you read and understand all three linked articles and comments, you might discern that the author is discussing the probability of DATA being stored, not chemicals reacting with each other.

What a marvelous obfuscation. Perhaps you should answer my other posts:
1. What is the data content of your Hamlet string?
2. What is the data content for a simple 32 element self-replicating peptide string?
3. Why does "Data" matter at all - the real issue is the actual chemistry itself. Treating the problem as information or data is an abstraction. But if the chemistry indicates that the molecules in fact form very easily, in spite of your abstraction, that means that the abstraction is inapposite, not that the chemistry is wrong. Your monkeys are at best an analogy; the nature of chemical interactions reveals that the analogy is ill-considered.
4. Again, your example does not allow for the selection and replication of data. It must fail.

"The "monkeys and typewriters" analogy chanages dramatically if, while pounding out a stream of random text, words in the dictionary are kept while non-words are discarded."

Yes, but it would no longer be either random or natural or unaided. The dictionary contains knowledge. Injecting such wisdom/intelligence into the analogy would merely demonstrate that Life is more likely to form if there was some intelligence involved.

you might discern that the author is discussing the probability of DATA being stored, not chemicals reacting with each other

You will illuminate this, I hope. "Data" is a construct, chemicals do exist and are observed combining into more complex structures.

As Physicist has pointed out, there is no absolute way to divide chemicals into living and non-living. The more we study, the more we find chemicals shading into living things. And vice-versa.

"There aren't any cellular organisms that don't have DNA, but that's because DNA works so well." - Physicist

Fair enough. Can we therefor agree that Watson's proof is valid for the probability/improbability of the necessary data self-forming in the DNA of the first cellular organism? - Southack

"Any DNA-less single-celled critters have long since been devoured into extinction." - Physicist

I've seen no proof of that assertation. Can you offer any proof or is that merely your opinion of early life?

"If the author claims that the proof show evolution is impossible he has to take into into account how the properties of the chemicals affect the data."

Please explain how data gets stored inside chemicals, and how said chemicals affect the data, per your point above.

A little formatting would help your argument. Assumption of a creator might comfort you personally, but adds nothing to an explanation.

Prior to quantum theory, "materialism" had a distinctly different flavor. Now it's open to all kinds of interpretations. But chemistry exists as a growing and developing science, and it has pretty much absorbed biology.

Being neither a chemist nor a biologist I have little to offer this debate except a prediction: the more life is studied, the more chemical it will appear in concept. Evolution will soon be a laboratory science.

Please explain how data gets stored inside chemicals, and how said chemicals affect the data, per your point above.

Uh.... that's YOUR job? You and Watson are the ones making the argument that your odd-ball version of information theory somehow correctly models the behavior of complex chemical interactions, and therefore predcts the probabilities of the formation of certain compounds (which, according to you, contain something called "Data"). To make this argument, you also need to make and support the claim that Data in fact IS stored in chemicals.

After all, if the chemicals at issue (self-replicating peptide strings, the precursors to RNA and thus DNA) do NOT contain Data, then your monkey-model is irrelevant.

Please explain how data gets stored inside chemicals, and how said chemicals affect the data, per your point above.

1. How data gets stored inside chemicals is too obvious.
2. Chemical A likes chemical B more than C. Hence, reactions between them will not be purely random. That's how they affect the data.
3. Also, intermediate results are reused (feedback). Not so in the case of poor monkeys.
Regards.
P.S. You still think feedback implies intelligence?

"Why does "Data" matter at all - the real issue is the actual chemistry itself."

Data matters because data distinguishes a book written by Shakespeare from random letters formed by clouds in the sky above us.

It is data that distinguishes the DNA of the first cellular organism from that of Man's. Both Man and amoeba have DNA, after all, but what distinguishes the DNA from each other is the data.

Likewise, until we have data stored in DNA, we don't have Life. Instead, we just have a chemical compound/structure.

How did the data get there? That's a very valid question, worthy of a mathematical probability exercise (as this and other related threads indicate).

We can calculate the precise probability / improbability of data forming randomly / naturally / without intelligent aid.

That's precisely what this proof does. It shows you the mathematical probability / improbability of data self-forming without intelligent aid.

"You will illuminate this, I hope. "Data" is a construct, chemicals do exist and are observed combining into more complex structures."

Certainly, I agree. Chemicals form the very hard drive that you are using in your computer today, for instance.

But just because chemicals formed your hard drive doesn't mean that data was automatically stored on it.

How did the data get onto your hard drive? Perhaps you put some data onto your hard drive. Perhaps the manufacturer of your PC put some data on it, too. Did data self-form into useful programs on your hard drive with no intelligent intervention whatsoever? To calculate the probability / improbability of that data self-forming in the chemicals that comprise your hard drive, we can use Watson's math proof above.

Likewise, we can apply the same mathematical proof to the probability / improbability of data self-forming into other chemicals, such as in the chemicals that comprise DNA.

Nice statement of the current dogma, but this all takes place within what volume and what degree of permeability?

Not being an experimental chemist, I don't think I can help you. Maybe someone else can. However, I can read, and the conclusions of this source, a professor of chemistry at Indiana U., seem to be credible. Is that good enough?

And looking for Shakespeare output is similarly artificial. One could argue that the first 100 pages of randomness is just as naturally & statistically valid as the copy of Hamlet we're waiting for.

My point was that there are other factors which facilitate focusing the randomized generation of something. The author ignores the fact that generating DNA via a random process is still affected by chemical affinity toward creating certain classes of molecules, and that once a certain few limited molecules are formed there is a sudden & dramatic improvement in the development of more advanced structures.

The author, while waiting for the monkeys to pound out Hamlet, ignores the fact that they also generate vast numbers of other literary works - including the poetry of Grunthos the Flatulent, one of the Azagoths of Kria, and the entire diary of a steaming mold hiding on the second planet circiling Vega. By artifically limiting the monkeys to Hamlet, he severly distorts the statistics by ignoring all other viable texts (whether he can read them or not).

Huh? You are beginning to confuse your analogy with reality. The dictionary analogy shows that "randomness" is not. Certain combinations work (real words) and are retained because they do work and survive to the next generation. Other combinations don't work (gobbledygook) and are discarded -- in nature these are the combinations that are detrimental, or which do not promote survival, so they die off. There is no "Intelligence" guiding this; simply environmental pressures.

"To make this argument, you also need to make and support the claim that Data in fact IS stored in chemicals. After all, if the chemicals at issue (self-replicating peptide strings, the precursors to RNA and thus DNA) do NOT contain Data, then your monkey-model is irrelevant."

DNA is a chemical compound structured in a double-helix shape. DNA looks the same regardless of what life form we find it in.

What separates the DNA of an amoeba from the DNA of a Man, then?

The answer, of course, is that there is different DATA stored in those two DNA samples.

And DATA isn't just stored in DNA. DATA is also stored in the chemicals (via magnetism usually) that comprise your hard drive.

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