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:
It isn't in "my world", it's what the word means. This is about a statistical argument. Statistically speaking, "random" means it has a uniform distribution, in that any possible outcome is equally likely. That's it. It has nothing to do with a lack of intelligent bias.
In more casual usage people use "random" to mean "by chance". Even though random effects play a role, evolution is NOT a random process.
Randomness would only be relevent to DNA formation if the it was postulated that an entire DNA molecule formed at one time, out of its component parts. Nobody believes that. The randomness argument is not relevent.
No, it means the results of 'failed attempts at DNA formation' join the original inputs in the environment! No intelligence required!!!
You are wrong about that too. "Feedback" does not imply intelligence.
How would you get a non-uniform, non-random probability distribution without intelligent bias?
the point is fitness IS relevant to natural evolution, but not in the monkey case described in the article. I attempted to change the monkey-model to resemble natural evolution .
as for an outside intelligence, in natural evolution the fitness test is just that: fitness/survivability in the environment.
The language and its development is quite irrelevant here. Itis purely a mathematical problem. The monkey does not have any language base, knows not what he is typing, and the keys could be random numbers. The problem would not change. A string of DNA has many times more information in its structure than does an alphabet.
Why do you assume the only kind of bias is an intelligent one?
more accurately, it means incompressible.
And it's funny how none out of 26 species of finch ever became a dog, a cat, a monkey (which might or might not know how to type), or a human. The theory of evolution is an extrapolation of empirically witnessed "micro-evolution" (to borrow a term introduced elsewhere in this thread). Nowhere is there evidence of a mutation from one genus to another, much less from one kingdom, phylum, class, order, or family to another.
Don't cite spurious "evidence" of micro-evolution to support macro-evolutionary theory. (And, yes, there is a difference between the two. Macro evolution requires that an organism transforms from one species into an unrelated species - not that a finch may develop specialized characteristics and therefore be recognized as a "new" species.)
That's exactly the kind of argument that's used to proclaim the security of various encryption systems: If a long enough key is used, the time it would take to try all decryption combinations is many times longer than the life of the universe, or would require more computers than there are electrons in the universe, etc. [with various assumptions about computer power and algorithmic efficiency thrown into the mix].
Then along comes the still-infant technology of quantum computing, and suddenly all those estimates of impossibly long times and impossibly large numbers are called into question. Quantum computers can simultaneous examine all possible output states, and so (in theory) are not subject to the same exponential limitations as conventional computers. What were previously infinitesmally small probabilites are now substantial.
Quantum mechanics is real, and it is fundamental to the nature of this universe (and maybe an infinity or near-infinity of other universes). Even aside from the many valid points that other posters on this thread have made about the non-random, iterative nature of evolution, it is not impossible that quantum mechanical "random" processes could have produced a universe in which intelligent life evolved. No matter how "unlikely" that might seem to some people, our observation of that fact would be the consequence of our being an instance of that "unlikely" event.
The correct variables put into the formula make for an event that wouldn't happen ever, anywhere, at any time.
...unless of course intellegence were somehow included.
As in a card trick, the most important one is not the person who randomly picks a card, but the One who arranged the cards in the first place.
With evolution, what seems uncontolled, without any intelligent design, has actually been very precisely controlled from the outset, by the Master Magician, who laid all the cards in place.
It could be that the true Creation moment, was actually the creation of Evolution itself, which is a guiding process, empowered by God to bring about every living thing, and their future modifications, from the moment of the Big Bang, onward through time.
it does not at all. in natural evolution, the more fit (for their environment) specimens reproduce. thats feedback.
You die. That's what happened to most dinosaurs. Organisms don't evolve in one or two generations just because there is a sudden need. E.g. when content of the atmosphere starts to sloooooooooowly change some of the random mutations result in changes that 'fit' new conditions better - these individuals reproduce, passing 'better' genes to next generation. etc.
32 amino acids. (That's why a "polymer" is a chain of "monomers"! :-)
Here's a page I found with some animation of the peptide.
its not necessary for one to become another, they could both be traced back to the same thing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.