hysterical Darwinites panic

crosswalk ^ | 2004 | creationist

[WildTurkey]

Talking about high odds, why do you think CBS and Dan Rather would ever apologize? A bit creo of you, eh?

1)You have no idea what I am thinking unless you have God's power.

2)Creo? I have no idea what you are talking about.

[bvw]

Just reading your very own tag line. It says "When will CBS Retract and Apologize?". Perhaps you forgot you had it. Or maybe it evolved on its own.

"Creo" -- the invert polarity to "evo".

[Heartlander]

But where does ‘survival’ exist? This is not a mindless mechanism as required in ‘natural’ science. A snowflake has no survival instinct. Are you saying that there is a difference because something ‘lives’ but was put together in just a different sequence than a snowflake?

Snowflake -> natural mechanisms -> no survival
Organism -> natural mechanisms -> survival -> teleology (unless an organism is not intended to survive)

[Heartlander]

The post was a ‘mutant’ analogy that was not transferred apparently…

[RightWingNilla]

Survival = exist

[Heartlander]

Tautology...

[RightWingNilla]

Tautology...

Its not. The sequences simply exist. They replicate themselves. When one of the daughter sequences undergoes a slight change (error in replication) the competition begins.

[AntiGuv]

In a purely random universe* the odds of the information reaching you would be no greater than 1 in 14.550941072021 × 10¹⁷⁹ -- and that's a modest approximation where only space and time are randomized. Since the true random odds are infinity divided by one, you can actually make them appear as slight as you wish short of that by introducing additional variables. It's the same game creationists play with information theory and probability statistics.

In keeping with such ID 'logic' (so to speak), clearly the information could only have reached you because God telegrammed it directly to you....

* I'm fairly certain that's what you mean by the incoherent way you're using the term "purely 'natural' environment"..

[AntiGuv]

PS. And might I add that in a purely random universe the odds of the information reaching you would be no greater whether WildTurkey posted it "accidentally" to balrog666, posted it "correctly" to you, or didn't even post it at all.

[Heartlander]

Survival -> fitness -> intelligence -> consciousness -> morality?

Nature invokes all of this?

Nature, you mindless mechanism you… you’re s’no flaky… you got some s’plainin’ to do…

[longshadow]

"Festival of the Vanquished Trolls" memorial placemarker

[js1138]

You are calculating the probability of something that biology has never claimed happened. You are arguing against something that doesn't exist and never has existed.

What?

Here's your problem: You have calculated the probability of getting from A to B. But biology doesn't predict a journey from A to B. Biology just predicts that A will change over time.

You assert how complex an eye or a flagellum is, but biology doesn't assert that eyes and flagella are necessary outcomes of evolution.

You marvel at a bridge hand and calculate the odds of that particular hand being dealt, but no one predicted that hand before it was dealt.

Evolution does not require the evolution of any particular function, yet you look at whatever hand evolution has dealt, and say the odds were impossible.

Patrick Henry has called this retrospective astonishment.

But that is just your first problem. In addition to falsely calculating the odds of some arbitrary instance "specified complexity", you falsely character the steps by which the hand was dealt, claiming it poofed into existence in one swoop, by random action.

You ignore the ratchet of the gambling house, by which, in slow, incremental steps -- occasionally backwards, but by inexorable probability forwards -- the house relieves you of your money.

In the game of life the house keeps its winnings and lets the unfortunate pay for its losings.

[js1138]

It's a photo

Good call, but actually it's a jpeg.

[js1138]

The word struggle is unfortunate. I cringe every time I hear it. Some individuals reproduce. Others don't. Individuals struggle, but it is not usually informative to label evolution a struggle.

In any even, it is just a word. If you are into scoring points, you might enjoy catching someone using a colloquial phrase, but it doesn't advance any argument.

[js1138]

The odds of any specific thing happening can be calculated to approach zero without any mathematical errors and without making any bizarre assumptions.

But it has always seemed futile, to me, to calculate the odds against something that has already happened.

It's sort of like that population curve that was so optimistically foisted on us. Hey, the numbers seem reasonable, but when examined, lead to absurdities. When calculations lead to absurdities, something is wrong with the way the problem was analyzed, and the wrong formula is being used.

[AntiGuv]

Opps! Just realized I had a typo. The "true random odds" of that info reaching Heartlander (or anyone, or no one, or everyone) were one divided by infinity and not the other way around.

[RightWingNilla]

Survival -> fitness -> intelligence -> consciousness -> morality?

Whoooa hold on there tex!

For now the goal is modest - to see how a sequence which undergoes multiple rounds of selection (i.e. tests for survival) can give rise to a molecular machine refined to the point where it appears "designed".

[RightWingNilla]

Individuals struggle, but it is not usually informative to label evolution a struggle.

Good point js.

I was trying to rephrase it such a way that is less anthropomorphic, but I guess it wasn't clear.

The sequences simply are. They self-replicate. The ones which are more efficient at this eventually dominate the population.

[Doctor Stochastic]

...the odds against something that has already happened

That would be probablity 1.**720

One could compute ex-ante probablities, but that would lead to 0 as you pointed out.

[Doctor Stochastic]

"Fittest" is an output, not an input.

Evolutionary Observation 1: Offspring differ from parents.
Evolutionary Observation 2: Scion quantity varies.

Observation 1 happens due to mutations (and recombinations.) This was Darwin's big point. Lamarck had it differently.

Observation 2 happens due to either either "better equipment" or just luck.