Moreover, the author's point was that natural evolution/variation is more complicated and complex than his simile of monkeys banging on keyboards, and thus, even less probable. - Southack
"Except that this point is FLAT WRONG. More complicated processes often make results *MORE* likely than a simple process in isolation. Example: Evaporation alone, analyzed without gravity, could not produce rain except as an ENORMOUSLY unlikely combination of water vapor molecules all randomly rebounding in the same direction (towards the ground) at the same time. The odds of this would make the monkey typists look downright productive in comparison."
No, that's incorrect.
Water evaporation isn't more complicated because it does NOT depend upon any set, specific sequence of water molecules.
However, the first sentence of Hamlet ABSOLUTELY depends upon a set, specific sequence of characters, as does every gene depend upon a set, specific sequence of base pairs.
No, that's incorrect. It is correct, your habit of saying "is not!" notwithstanding.
If you think you can find any flaw in my physics, feel free to point it out now.
Water evaporation isn't more complicated because it does NOT depend upon any set, specific sequence of water molecules.
First, the end process in my example was rain, not evaporation. Try to keep up.
Second, the point is that it most certainly *does* take a very unlikely specific configuration of water molecules if, like the author of the original post, you foolishly make your calculations without taking into account all the physical processes at work.
However, the first sentence of Hamlet ABSOLUTELY depends upon a set, specific sequence of characters,
...which is one of the many reasons it's an invalid analogy...
as does every gene depend upon a set, specific sequence of base pairs.
Gee, really? Then you must have new information to rebut all those biologists who have found huge numbers of alternate forms of various genetic sequences in various species, all performing the same function.
And the potential "sequence space" is even larger:
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.
-- Ian Musgrave [footnote links available in original link, try reading it]
That was from one of the references I strongly suggested that you read. Is there any reason you didn't bother? Is there any reason I should continue to spoonfeed you information if you're not going to bother to pay any attention to it?