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:
Wrong again.
It was *our* world, *our* oceans, in which I applied the *actual* rate of chemical reactions.
I'm not surprised this wasn't obvious to you, though.
Since you've managed to misunderstand it several times, let me restate the purpose of the example in a nutshell:
Your "typing monkeys" example attempted to demonstrate that a 41-character sequence could not practically be produced by chance in a timespan of less than countless billions of years.Clearly more than water molecules was involved in the original formation of life. But then more than typing monkeys were required too. The water molecule example, JUST LIKE YOUR MONKEYS, is intended only to get a grasp for the size of the task (which you arbitrarily set at "41 characters") and its feasibility (or not).So I demonstrated that this was false by moving the "trials" to a more appropriate location (the oceans), a more appropriate realm (the molecular level) and a more appropriate reaction rate (the actual speed of chemical reactions), and showing that under *those* conditions, your "impossible character string" could be produced in about ten years.
It proves that the "size" of the problem isn't out of the question for the molecular realm. This demolishes your original conclusions about the monkeys. Period. Deal with it.
Monkeys aren't practical producers of mind-boggling numbers of long chains of random sequences. Molecules *ARE*, because there are mind-bogglingly large numbers of them, and they react very quickly.
*NOW* do you get it?
Nonsense!
Name those "appropriate chemicals" if that's really the case (hint: you can't).
Show where adding the right inanimate chemicals in the lab will suddenly create life from previously inanimate DNA (hint: you can't show that, either).
Contrary to your bizarre unscientific fantasies (e.g. above), our current state of science DOES NOT know how to create life from solely inanimate matter.
On the contrary, Watson's math is perfectly valid for demonstrating probabilities, especially in regards to scope and scale, hence this thread.
Nor did your monkeys produce anything of continuing activity.
Nor was there any "natural selection" in Dan Day's water world.
Nor in your "monkey universe". Getting a clue yet?
In fact, it was a completely lifeless world that he created and was referring to.
I appreciate your confidence in my powers, but I must inform you that no, I did not actually create the Earth's oceans.
Would you like to explain how a completely lifeless world is going to implement natural selection, especially his lifeless world in question?
BIG HINT: Sure, right after you explain how your monkeys will make "to be or not to be, that is the question" spring to life when it eventually rolls off their typewriters.
Let me get this straight -- you consider "typing monkeys" in distant galaxies to be a "valid" simile for abiogenesis, but you *don't* accept a calculation of how many long-chain chemical reactions are possible in the Earth's oceans?
Seek help, fella.
You haven't even touched it (at least not honestly).
Now I *know* you're just game-playing. You're just another troll who invites long rebuttals to his nonsense, then get his jollies dancing around and saying, "ha ha, missed me!"
Face it, son, your monkey mania has been demolished, point by point. If you want to sidestep that fact and try to pretend it didn't happen, the only person you're fooling here is yourself.
No, you've demonstrated no such thing.
Your water world example merely shows that molecules of water can vibrate as many or more times as the inverse of the probability for forming a sentence from Shakespeare's Hamlet, but you've completely failed to show how such vibrations have any relevance or even resemblence to a valid natural guess. How is a water molecule's vibrations equal to data?
What you've said is analagous to saying that the grains of sand on the beach form the words of every book ever written, IF you discard or ignore all of the other grains (that interfere with such ordered patterns).
In other words, neither the vibration of water nor the mass of sand on the beach can be scientificly considered to be "ordered" into any valid data. Both more closely resemble chaos rather than order, and you are being disingenuous to claim otherwise.
When I refer to God, I speak of the Judeo-Christian diety, not the moon god of Mecca. Yet even Islam produced more moral behavior than the brutal despots it displaced. There was a time in History where Islam was actually a force for relative justice. As soon as it tried conclusions with Christianity, it was turned back. The better yields to the best.
As for your last point, the 'atrocities of the middle ages', while horrific, are lesser in magnitude and multitude than those of our modern 'enlightened' times. They are also less when compared to the barbarism of the times. However bad times were, they would have been worse if Christianity had not taken root. No force on Earth, relative to the strength it possessed, has been so restrained and beneficial to mankind as Christiandom.
Your water world example gives a false sense of mathematical possibility/probability, however.
It presumes that hitting upon the correct sequence, if valid even for only the tiniest possible fraction of a second, will accurately demonstrate that the scope and scale of such a low-percentage occurance is realistic.
Sure, if you have that many molecules vibrating and reacting with each other on such a massive scale, and if every possible position and potential reaction of those molecules can be considered to be both valid data as well as a valid guess for the random probability under discussion, then of course DNA could be sequenced/programmed without intelligent intervention.
So on the surface, your hypothetical water world does indeed give a false sense of mathematical probability.
But having the correct DNA sequence exist for NO LONGER than the tiniest possible fraction of a second is clearly not going to establish DNA from whole cloth in a completely inanimate, unintelligent process or environment.
Sure, water molecules can vibrate a great number of times, but that doesn't even give us the BINARY data that you require for your water world simile, much less give us a single correctly sequenced entity for any useful length of time.
Methinks thou doth protest too much.
"3. I *told* you that (1/4)^N wasn't going to cut it. Your equation is just a thinly disguised form of it. After correcting your erroneous "^2" term, your equation can be written as: (1/4)^(3*C), where 3*C (three times the codon count) is just another way of expressing N (the base pair count). The reason that this is a bogus calculation is that the first replicator almost certainly wasn't DNA-based. DNA-based biology evolved from humbler beginnings, and your calculation doesn't do jack to model those other scenarios."My calculation wasn't SUPPOSED to model any other scenarios.
Ah, so you *ADMIT* it's an incomplete examination of the full range of possibilities? I admire your honesty, if not your competence.
Thus, your "reason" given for it being bogus is in error.
Uh, no, son, my "reason" for declaring it bogus was precisely the fact that it DOESN'T model any other scenarios, when it needs to if it's going to purport to be a "precise" (as you declared it) probability for the rise of the first replicator. And since you freely *admit* that it doesn't, I stand by my decaration of it as "bogus".
It's like throwing a handful of coins onto the table and calculating what the odds are of at least one head showing. But you calculate just the odds for the quarters. "Wait," I say, "that's wrong, to get the right answer you can't just do the calculation for the quarters alone, you have to include the other coins as well". Then you say, "but my calculation wasn't SUPPOSED to do anything but the quarters". Well, fine, be fixated if you want, but that doesn't give the full answer, does it?
Ergo, my point (and my calculation) still stands: it is LESS probable for DNA sequences to self-form naturally than it is for phenomenally large numbers of monkeys to type out the first 41 characters (in sequence) of Shakespeare's Hamlet...in 17 billion years.
And you're still wrong. Chemical processes happen far more rapidly than typing monkeys, and there's room for vastly more chemical reactions in the ocean than there are monkeys. Deal with it.
You *also* need to deal with another item you keep trying to avoid addressing, which is that "DNA" is *not* the most likely "first replicator", even though that's all you've been fixating on.
If you're *truly* going to try to demonstrate that abiogenesis is statistically impossible, you *MUST* address the plausibility (or lack thereof) of *ALL* the possible alternative candidates as well. Otherwise you're just wasting your time (and ours).
It would be like "proving" manned flight impossible by showing how unlikely it would be for the Wright brothers to crank out a 747 as their first airplane...
You've got to look at *all* the possible forms of the "first replicator" (again, GO READ the references I've given you). But frankly, I don't think you're up to the task. You're having a hard enough time getting DNA basics from Biology 101 straight (e.g. base pairs do *not* pair up arbitrarily), I hesitate to think what you'd make of, say, autocatalytic reaction networks, or a multisubunit ribozyme that is a catalyst of and template for complementary strand RNA synthesis
And the math for the monkeys is covered in exhaustive fashion in the very first post on this thread. In fact, that what this thread is all about.
Don't try to pretend I haven't already addressed that in great detail, son.
Fear not, for Help is on the way!
Once again, you've managed to not comprehend enough of the argument to stay out of trouble. This is understandable, however, so I will once again set you straight (with ease - and even with a smile on my face, btw).
The monkey simile gives the monkeys typewriters. These typewriters can ONLY output valid characters. Further, the monkeys are constrained from otherwise making output, and they are compelled to make lots and lots of keypresses (again, all of which are valid characters).
In contrast, you created a hypothetical water world in which water molecules vibrated and chemically reacted in a binary fashion. No up, down, left, right, backwards, forwards, or positions/movements in-between for you. No, those water molecules could only vibrate/react in a binary (i.e. limited to two) fashion.
And you placed those 2 dimensional binary vibrations/reactions into a 3 dimensional environment (i.e. oceans) and then went on to say that if you examined all possible groupings of all of those molecules for ten years, that for the tiniest fraction of a second the correct first sentence of Shakespeare's Hamlet would momentarily exist, in binary, somewhere in those oceans.
So no, I don't find your water world simile useful for explaining how the scope and scale of probability for low-percentage sequences can happen on Earth. Your simile simply gives a false mathematical sense of possibility.
The monkey simile, on the other hand, at least manages to illustrate the vastness of the problem in question, and certainly fails to give any false sense of security.
No apology is required.
Oh -- happy in your disability, eh?
The evidence at hand supports my analogy; it does not invalidate it.
What's that sound I hear? Oh, it's just the evidence bouncing off your forehead with a sharp "ping".
The sequence of base pairs inside a gene is critical to its final output, and this can be confirmed by randomly rearranging large numbers of codons in any animated gene and then watching the output.
Is there any reason you keep rambling on about this, despite the fact that I already know it well?
Back to my point about the sequence of base pairs being critical, it's probably worth pointing out to you that the entire Human Genome Project is about mapping, sequencing, and identifying what the genes do.
Thank you, Mr. Obvious.
Ergo, even Evolutionists, at least the modern ones, should know that sequencing is critical to our understanding of genes as well as to the performance of those genes.
Are you finished yet?
Stop wasting time, of course sequence is important. I already stated this several times. So stop the long-winded exposition of the obvious.
What you seem to be trying to avoid dealing with, however, is that a *particular* sequence is seldom *required*. That is, there are often many alternative sequences -- some quite different, some differing by only a single base pair -- which can produce the same results.
You keep trying to sweep this under the rug because it makes evolution more easily possible. Your earlier posts tried to imply that evolution was implausible because a single change will necessarily cause the function of a gene to come crashing down. But it quite simply is *NOT* true. A sequence change *can* change or destroy function -- but it's not in any way guaranteed.
So cut the games where you restate the trivially obvious and fail to address the more problematic points for your position.
Are we currently in possession of scientific evidence of a non-DNA life form? If so, then show it and we'll re-do this entire argument to decide if we can accurately portray the scope and scale of this new form of life.
However, if we have no evidence of such a non-DNA life form, then one would have to wonder just how valid it would be to debate such a non-scientific entity's alleged formation.
Also, I haven't claimed that abiogenesis is impossible (this is a recurring theme with you Evolutionists, you tend to fantasize positions that simply aren't there), contrary to your assertation in quotes above.
Abiogenesis is axiomatic (if you don't know what that means, just ask).
The question is NOT whether abiogenesis is possible, but whether it can be achieved WITH or WITHOUT intelligent intervention, hence this thread.
So do try to keep up.
Oh please, surely you can at least grasp the math involved in statistical probabilities.
The alternative sequences are far too small in number to substantially alter the probabilities as stated in the math for this thread. Whether you have one valid sequence in 10^41 or 20,000,000 valid sequences, your mathematical probability for randomly hitting any of them is still essentially 0.
Nope, in a situation where there is no selective advantage as here where there is a neutral mutation, the mutation does not spread.
This is quite simply false. It may spread, it may die out, it may stay the same for a while. I repeat, go look up any good reference on Genetic Drift, it goes into all this.
Genetic drift only changes allele frequency when new groups intermingle. Then in a sense a new larger group arises including the new members and this results in new allele frequencies of the new group.
This is, again, quite simply flat wrong. Go read up on the topic before you make incorrect presumptions (and pronouncements) about it.
However in the case here of a single mutation occurring in one individual, it has no effect at all.
Strike three.
Nope, the laws of Mendelian genetics are quite strict.
So are the laws of statistics. Try learning about them.
The 50% chance of an allele reproducing is set in stone.
PER OFFSPRING. Some individuals have more offspring than others.
Furthermore, it's extremely misleading to say that the 50% chance is "set in stone" -- this implies that if you have two offspring, you're guaranteed to have one with the allele and one without. This is, of course, false. Each new offspring is a "roll of the dice", and *both* could end up with the allele -- or neither. Drift happens when an allele "gets lucky", through the roll of the genetic dice.
Because all alleles have the same chance, the proportion of incidence of an allele in a population does not change when it does not have a selective advantage as is the case here.
Complete twaddle. What you're missing is that not every member of the population has an identical number of children. In a population of stable size, each individual has ON AVERAGE two children who survive to reproduction age, but needless to say there's no law of nature which *ensures* that every individual has exactly two successful offspring, no more, no less.
Genetic drift comes about as an inevitable result of the fact that possessers of a given allele will happen to be more or less successful at having children (by chance) than individuals which don't have the allele.
This isn't rocket science. Go look it up before you make any more incorrect presumptions. Write a simulation if you don't believe me, or run any of the Java-based simulators on various Genetic Drift web pages.
In short, what I am telling you very simply is that the concept of neutral drift is absolute malarkey.
...and the presumption you base this on -- that every individual will have precisely 2.0 children (one with the allele, one without, without exception) -- *ISN'T* "absolutely malarkey"?
Please. Go read up on the topic before you say anything else foolish.
This is proven by the persistence of recessive genetic defects. Because the carriers of the defect do not suffer from the defect, the defect remains in the population in spite of its deleterious effects on the progeny.
And this disproves Genetic Drift *how*, exactly? You're talking apples and oranges. Are you sure you understand what Genetic Drift actually is?
Genetic drift is perfectly compatible with the existence of "persistent" genes, so what's your point?
Also, as the population interbreeds, the various mutations in the population get "mixed and matched" very rapidly, the "2nd, 3rd, etc." mutations don't have to occur in any direct descendant of the individual with the "1st" mutation. If they occur *anywhere* in the population they can get shuffled together at any subsequent generation.
Not so, and again this is precluded by Mendelian genetics (that is why it is such a killer for evolution!). The mutations cannot get shuffled.
*snort*. Of course they can.
Let say that individual A has a mutation, and individual B has a mutation, that they mate and both mutations are passed to the descendant. What will happen is that mutation A will be in one allele and mutation B will be in another allele, the alleles will not mix and create a new AB mutation.
Yeah? So? You forgot to include the part where you explain *why* that matters.
The fact remains is that if the AB combination *in the same individual* (who cares if it's on the same allele) produce a synergistic effect (i.e., together they provide a more beneficial effect than either alone), then natural selection will act to increase the percentage of the population which has the AB *combination*.
If it confers a good enough advantage, eventually over enough time *all* of the population will have both the A and the B mutations, permanently "updating" the species.
This is fairly simple genetics and it shows the impossibility of the propositions made by evolutionists.
*cough*. Actually, it shows the inability of the anti-evolutionists to properly work out the full consequences of a scenario.
I see that earlier in the thread you were arguing about multiple "hits" to the same gene, but note that this is *not* the only way for evolutionary "progress" to occur. The "stirring" of separately modified genes, as I described, is also a powerful factor which you seem to have overlooked.
Furthermore, you overlook the case of beneficial mutations which will strongly boost the prevalence of the gene in the population, which then makes for a much larger base of "test tubes" where a subsequence mutation on the same gene can happen (thus raising the odds dramatically).
Finally, you're obviously unclear on the role that Genetic Drift plays in the spread of neutral alleles (which then provides the same larger base as described in the previous paragraph).
Don't declare something "totally impossible" until you're sure you fully understand it.
Congratulations for *TOTALLY* missing the point. Again. Still.
You also did a great job of nitpicking one silly and irrelevant point and failing to address all the points which poke large holes in your position.
Don't think it has gone unnoticed.
So is your dodging the real meat of the issue done on purpose through dishonesty, or unintentional through cluelessness?
Nonsense!
Name those "appropriate chemicals" if that's really the case
Wow, now we need to add basic organic chemistry to the topics of which you're entirely ignorant.
Here you go, Sparky: DNA Polymerase I, DNA Polymerase III, DNA topoisomerase I, DNA Ligase, RNA primase, DNA Single-Stranded Binding proteins, and dNTPs.
(hint: you can't).
Hint: You're an ignoramus.
I've been pretty tolerant of your name-calling so far, but at some point you are going to have to clean up your act (or get banned).
Moreover, your name-calling distracts from the subject at hand, and it also reduces your already-low credibility.
Hopefully, that's enough said on that matter.
Yes. Yes indeed I can. Now will you please catch up?
The alternative sequences are far too small in number to substantially alter the probabilities as stated in the math for this thread. Whether you have one valid sequence in 10^41 or 20,000,000 valid sequences, your mathematical probability for randomly hitting any of them is still essentially 0.
Are you suffering from some tragic brain damage which causes you to be unable to remember things from one day to the next? We dealt with this one already, son. See post #559. Here's the relevant portion, which you obviously failed to understand in the least:
However, an analysis by Ekland suggests that in the sequence space of 220 nucleotide long RNA sequences, a staggering 2.5 x 10^112 sequences are efficent ligases [12]. Not bad for a compound previously thought to be only structural. Going back to our primitive ocean of 1 x 10^24 litres and assuming a nucleotide concentration of 1 x 10^-7 M [23], then there are roughly 1 x 10^49 potential nucleotide chains, so that a fair number of efficent RNA ligases (about 1 x 10^34) could be produced in a year, let alone a million years. The potential number of RNA polymerases is high also; about 1 in every 10^20 sequences is an RNA polymerase [12]. Similar considerations apply for ribosomal acyl transferases (about 1 in every 10^15 sequences), and ribozymal nucleotide synthesis [1, 6, 13]. Similarly, of the 1 x 10^130 possible 100 unit proteins, 3.8 x 10^61 represent cytochrome C alone! [29] There's lots of functional enyzmes in the peptide/nucleotide search space, so it would seem likely that a functioning ensemble of enzymes could be brewed up in an early Earth's prebiotic soup.Those are *VASTLY* larger numbers than the bogus "20,000,000" you offered as a false estimate.-- Ian Musgrave [footnote links available in original link, try reading it]
Dishonest, or stupid?
Either way, you're a lost cause, don't expect much more of my time. My work here is done, I've exposed you as a charlatan and/or a fool too many times to count now. Whether or not you're able to admit it, the lurkers should be quite able to see the shoddy quality of the anti-evolution arguments.
"Monkeys" my hind end. Come back when you're able to properly analyze self-sustaining organic chemical cycles and *then* we'll talk.
On the contrary, Watson's math is perfectly valid for demonstrating probabilities, especially in regards to scope and scale, hence this thread.
Reduced to mindlessly repeating yourself, eh? Here, read what I wrote until you grasp its meaning:
"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.""Demonstrating probabilities" is nothing but playing with a calculator if you don't have a valid model for the process you're trying to learn something about.
Period.
Deal with it.
Or if you can't or won't, give it up.
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.