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 attitude has always worked before. That is why we don't have technology or medicine or genetic engineering -- because our state of complete ignorance never changes. People who sought knowledge because they had faith that it could be obtained have all failed, died and gone to hell.
The "environment" in question (i.e. that I initially responded to above that got you to quote me out of context) was a hypothetical, fabricated water world in which EVERYTHING changed rapidly.
If you are going to get snippy, at least have the courtesy to pay attention to what people are talking about, please.
I've never gotten into the water molecule debate. I've been discussing whether evolution can occur prior to the first self-replicating molecules.
Really?
Can natural selection and variation occur without self-replicating molecules, and if so, do you have any tangible scientific examples of such?
Again, all of your arguments are founded in the fact that we do not know the exact process by which life originated. Such ignorance is transitory.
There are two main possibilities -- that God said so and that's it, or it arose from a natural progression. If you believe in the natural progression, you may also believe that nature was created in such a way as to allow this to occur.
I have now answered you in full. Since your object is not to have a discussion, but to assert that your state of ignorance is superior to my state of ignorance, I will take a break from posting.
But Mr. Watson's assumptions ARE speculation, and that's where we all have problems with it. I'm surprised you can't see that.
No? What non-random process regulates it, then?
You should take your own medicine because what you said (above) was NOT the question.
The question is very specific (something that weak theories such as Evolution can't handle) and remains:
Can natural selection and variation occur without self-replicating molecules, and if so, do you have any tangible scientific examples of such?
Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives(no govt religion--none) who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality... UNDER GOD---the nature of GOD/man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values(private/personal) GROWTH(limited NON-intrusive PC Govt/religion---schools)!
Evolution...Atheism-dehumanism---TYRANNY(pc/liberal/govt-religion/rhetoric)...
Then came the SPLIT SCHIZOPHRENIA/ZOMBIE/BRAVE-NWO1984 LIBERAL NEO-Soviet Darwin/ACLU America---the post-modern APE embareassment age
"But Mr. Watson's assumptions ARE speculation, and that's where we all have problems with it. I'm surprised you can't see that." - ThinkPlease
Indeed, his assumptions are speculation (of course, they are GENEROUS speculations which give huge favor to Evolution, but they are assumptions nonetheless), but his specific math is not speculation.
You're pretty cocky (not to mention obnoxious) for someone who's ignorant of most of the topics he expounds upon.
Your equation, based upon a 5 bits per character "natural" environment, would mean that your random vibrations of molecules could ONLY vibrate in a sum total of two directions (bits being equal to on/off, a binary, two-part world).
Yes, I know. That was implicit in the example. The fact that you think this is somehow a revelation to me shows that you really didn't understand it all that well.
The bigger problem, of course, is that your world presumes that every possible "movement" of a water molecule is a VALID part of a potential sequence, as well as that each movement of each water molecule is a new, valid bit of data. Each and every conceivable movement of water is equal to valid data, oh come on!
You're entirely missing the point, but then so what else is new.
Moreover, such a world would mean that the vibrations of one molecule would not interrupt of otherwise be destructive to any other part of the system (lest our sequential chain be broken), and then
True, but that's remarkably irrelevant to the point of the example. Are you just flailing about now, hoping to hit upon a valid objection by sheer chance?
This new inanimate world of yours would actually have to "know" that it had reached the desired output.
Not at all, that's irrelevant to the point of the example. Quick, now, do your goofy typing monkeys "know" when they have hit upon Shakespeare?
The point of the "water world" example is to demonstrate that although you could fill the universe with typing monkeys and not get Shakespeare, this is highly misleading: At the molecular level, there are *ENORMOUSLY* more loci for chemical reactions in the ocean (and at a far faster rate) than there is room for monkeys on all the planets. What is impractical (to say the least) with monkeys is plausible molecularly.
In short, it shows that the author of the post which started this thread vastly underestimates the actual amount of "chemical trials" possible on a planet. In fact, he doesn't even *bother* to estimate the number of chemical reactions possible in a given time period, he just babbles about monkeys, as if that proves anything about chemistry or biology.
But wait, there's more, even if your bizarre little world managed your incredulous feat, you still haven't explained how it would procede to animate itself.
I didn't say it could. Neither could the monkeys example, yet you somehow find *that* enormously relevant to biology. *snicker*.
After all, even when we have a valid DNA sequence from a dead organism, we still don't know how to animate it into a living, replicating, controlling process (at least not yet, and at least not without using other currently living/animated processes to provide such a jump-start or clone).
You're reaching again. DNA works by ordinary chemistry, there's no magic "breath of life" that has to be added to it when its environment contains the appropriate chemicals.
In short, you've managed to conjure up a world in which the sum total of your inanimate binary MOVEMENT
MOLECULAR movement, which is vastly more applicable to the issue being analyzed than your ludicrous monkeys at typewriters.
would equal the number of random/natural guesses required to sequence the first sentence of Shakespeare's Hamlet, but that's a far cry from actually being a viable world in which realistic guesses were being made by currently-known natural processes.
And monkeys typing on Saturn *IS*???? *ROFL*!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you, so very much, for shooting yourself in the foot so spectacularly.
I am, however, happy to see you apparently finally admit that your monkeys are an idiot's analysis because they are "a far cry from actually being a viable world in which realistic guesses were being made by currently-known natural processes".
Gee, you've shown that the sum total of all Earth's water molecules can vibrate 5.14x10^61 times in a decade,
No, I haven't. Learn to read, please. If you need help with the harder parts, feel free to ask for assistance. In actual fact, they would have vibrated 2.64x10^123 times in that period. Actually, "had time to react" instead of "vibrate", you've fixated too much on the word "vibrate", they would have actually vibrated far, far more often than that, as should have been clear from my example.
What I *have* done is demonstrate that the Earth's oceans are large enough, molecular components are small enough, and react quickly enough, that there would be time for a 1-in-10^61 chemical reaction to occur in a timespan not of billions of years, as the author tries to prove with MONKEYS (guffaw), but of mere tens of years.
So even 1-in-10^61 odds are "doable" with the whole Earth as a test tube.
This blows the monkeys clean out of the water, no pun intended.
QED.
except, that has absolutely no bearing on how DNA self-formed in useful sequences of data,
And *MONKEYS* do? Don't make a fool of yourself, son.
much less how it managed to become self-animated (a REQUIREMENT for any non-intelligent environment).
And *MONKEYS* do?
Son, I've already given you links, MORE THAN ONCE, to a more realistic set of calculations about the odds of a plausible first replicator arising. I suggest you go off and actually read it for a change.
But the point of my ocean example was to demonstrate just how ignorant the "monkey man" was of the vast (and "vast" is an understatement) numbers of possible chemical reactions that can take place on a single planet such as ours in a few short years, much less a billion. He thought he was choosing a problem that was so hard that the whole universe couldn't encompass the team necessary to solve it. Instead, it turns out that a single planet's ocean alone (ours) is well up to the task.
His monkey "proof" has been demolished, and he has been exposed as being highly ignorant of the topic he's trying to make a point about. Deal with it.
Nice try, but that sort of psuedo-science will hardly fool very many people (except perhaps those who don't want to believe anything else).
So says the guy who tried to prove something about evolution by invoking MONKEYS ON TYPEWRITERS...
I was examining actual volumes/rates of chemical trials on this planet. You were putting monkeys with typewriters on Alpha Centauri. So who, exactly, was engaging in "pseudo-science" here? And who do you think you've fooled by it?
Give up before you dig yourself any deeper.
And you proved this *where*, please?
but they are assumptions nonetheless), but his specific math is not speculation.
True, but without being tied to actual processes to be modeled (and there are those "assumptions" again), his math is irrelevant to the topic at hand.
How many times will this have to be explained to you until it sinks in?
The monkeys don't have to "know" anything because their hypothetical output is stable, contrary to the output in YOUR hypothetical water world simile, in which the output/result, even if correct, would vanish in the tiniest fraction of a second due to the speed of the reactions that you plugged in.
In short, the monkeys would still have their sentences typed onto paper somewhere, but your correct water world output would cease to exist before any other process or intelligence could even FIND it.
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