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:
That is not a surprise when the equivalent of tea leaves are used as the basis of a "scientific" theory.
I do agree that feedback can speed up a process, but the nature and complexity of this process makes me pause in agreeing completely. In an experiement of this nature, with so many variables to account for, there is still a lot of gray area that is left unexplored with the simplified assertion that feedback speeds up the process.
As an example, consider the idea that a given mutation may have been "correct" but not have gone far enough - kind of like the monkey typing To be or not. The mutation wasn't wrong, but in an evolutionary setting may have been fatal.
At any rate, the million monkeys example is not the best analogy for evolution, as you have stated. It is a simplification that serves as anecdotal analysis, but does not have direct bearing on the subject.
FRegards, MortMan.
well "checking for fitness" would be reproduction of successful mutations and no or less reproduction of less successfull ones. If the only part of evolution that people doubt is that it has not yet identified what first life looked like, that seems pretty good. creationists will go on believing in the creator, and the scientists will get back to unglorious work. and i'm sure will let people know once they've figured it out.
"well "checking for fitness" would be reproduction of successful mutations and no or less reproduction of less successfull ones." - gfactor
Certainly, but how would "fitness check" be performed in a lifeless world (i.e., before the first life)?
Your complaint, after all, was that the author of this math proof (Watson), didn't take into account a "fitness test".
I've yet to seen it explained how such a fitness test could be injected into a lifeless system randomly/naturally (i.e. without any form of Intelligent Intervention). Didn't you initially (Post #12) say that you wanted the monkeys' output compared to a dictionary, with the matching words kept and the others omitted?
it would be injected when first reproduction started, no matter how simple. if thats all that's missing from the evolution puzzle, i'm quite satisfied, for its a HUGE question.
So you are agreeing that the math in this proof is therefor valid for the lifeless, pre-reproduction, natural formation of DNA?
no. I don't know enough about under what conditions first reproduction came into being. and I have a feeling that evolution proponents don't know enough about it either.
What an wawful way to refer to students in your Chemistry 301.
Hair?
"They're like Napoleon's army in Moscow. They have occupied a lot of territory, and they think they've won the war. And yet they are very exposed in a hostile climate with a population that's very much unfriendly."
"That's the case with the Darwinists in the United States. The majority of the people are skeptical of the theory. And if the theory starts to waver a bit, it could all collapse, as Napoleon's army did in a rout."
The big question as I see it is how the hell a meat eating creature with a carnivore's teeth changes into a creature which strains seawater through baleen for plankton. That to me is something evolution cannot do. What kind of a plausible scenario could anybody come up with for a change like that via evolution?
I imagine you can develop a strategy of straining plankton through your teeth without having much of a specialized adaptation. At first it may just be a supplement to your large-fish carnivorous habits. But the "supplement" may grow to displace the main course if the pressures are there.
Dawkins says "Evolution is smarter than you are." Creationists love to jump on the anthropomorphism of that, claiming that evolution is thus some kind of God figure, but that's not it. Dawkins is just saying that your incredulities are useless as evidence. Brute force trial and error beats an inability to imagine.
I am in your camp. But evolution CAN DO some things. I see it right here at home in Florida. Little 3 inch lizards get in my house all the time. It's hard to catch them and evict them. Eventually they make offspring that adapt to in house conditions. Their skin is paler and their eyes are larger and bulge outward. To capture less light compared to their natural surroundings.
Argument from Incredulity is the essence of ID. But it's also a logical fallacy. Go figure!
The power of evidence from independent areas of study that support the same conclusion makes refutation by special creation scenarios, personal incredulity, the argument from ignorance, or "intelligent design" scenarious entirely unreasonable. The only plausible scientific conclusion is that whales did evolve from terrestrial mammals. So no matter how much anti-evolutionists rant about how impossible it is for land-dwelling, furry mammals to evolve into fully aquatic whales, the evidence itself shouts them down.The Origin of Whales and the Power of Independent Evidence.
Do you know the difference between possibility(fantasy) and probability(reality)?
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