Posted on 03/05/2002 9:45:44 PM PST by Southack
This is part two of the famous "Million Monkeys Typing On Keyboards for a Million Years Could Produce The Works of Shakespeare" - Debunked Mathematically.
For the Thread that inadvertently kicked started these mathematical discussions, Click Here
For the Original math thread, Click Here
That is the point. If he [Jesus I think] wanted to convince the world of his divinity, and he was god-like in his wisdom and foresight, why not do a miracle that would provide intcontravertable eternal evidence of such by writing "Jesus was here" or "Jesus is Lord" on the face of the moon.
On the other hand, why that? If people don't believe on the basis of His resurrection from the dead, they certainly aren't going to believe based on some signeage on the moon. You are aware, aren't you, that there are people today who believe the entire moon visit was a hoax. Would people who really don't want to believe Jesus is G-d be quick to accept some astronaut's version of writing on a moon rock? It's generally not lack of evidence that stands in the way of people accepting Jesus. It's a desire to rule their own lives rather than submitting them to G-d.
"For an all-powerful creator, who put his all into the intricacies and mechanisms of creation, 40 days and 40 nights and a kabillion gallons of water make a pretty crude eraser."
Perhaps, but it was effective and it made more than one pretty powerful point. The story of Noah means nothing or less than nothing all by itself. It is part of a history and as part of a history it is powerful. You are judging, perhaps, based on what you would do if you were G-d. But I submit that you have no idea of what you would do if you were G-d because you and G-d are nothing alike.
I don't mean to be antagonistic, my opinion of religion is neutral but leans negative because of how it is consumed -- people don't clean the root before eating it, they take the clinging soil as essential to the fruit.
So, you're blaming your unwillingness to accept Jesus on what other people do? Why not go to the source, Jesus Himself, and make your decision on that basis alone?
Like Aesops fables, the important thing is that they represent truths not that they *are* true. Religion and God are the result of concious matter ascribing purpose, affinity and divinity to itself -- as a phenomena, not as individual mini-gods. God is within, not without.
That is the type of god I can respect, understand and believe in.
i.e. yourself as G-d. Why am I not surprised?
Shalom.
My guess none.
Actually, that's what every one of the evolution threads is.
They are certainly not about anything having to do with biology or science.
Are you truly this ignorant?
Did you know that if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce, it tastes much more like prunes than rhubarb does?
But I understand why evolution threads always lead to discussions of whether G-d exists or not.
Shalom.
If you have a coherent argument to make, rather than ad hominems and non sequiturs, I'd like to hear it. Can you answer the questions in my 106?
Wow - we agree.
Beyond that, your 136, 137, 138, 142, 143, and 144 are not arguments. Perhaps you'd like to actually contribute the thread instead of spamming it?
Me: Data is not just stored in DNA, data is stored as DNA.
You: You simply re-iterated the point -- while somehow thinking you were critical of it.
Not true. Southack was arguing that DNA is simply a storage medium and that genetic data was a separate moveable entity. To draw another analogy, his posts indicated that he thinks of DNA as a closet, waiting for data to be stored inside.
Using that conceptualization of DNA and genetics, the original article has some validity; the storage medium must exist in order for the data to exist, but if the data doesn't exist then why should there be a storage medium? Chicken and egg, round and round.
However, as I pointed out, the structure of DNA and the encoding mechanisms thereof render this analogy false.
Didn't you say that all cellular organisms have DNA?
How did you arrive at the conclusion that I've proven that nothing complex can happen?
Actually, that's what the math shows. Why would you call that irrelevant?
Are you claiming that Life first arose from an incompletely formed DNA-based cell?
They do now, yes. The question is not what is the minimum now, but what's the minimum necessary. Every organism alive today is the optimized product of billions of years of evolution; for the author to hold up any one of these as being remotely comparable to the earliest cells is ludicrous.
Your points were good, but your conclusion from those points was flawed.
For instance, I can pick up a brand new hard drive off the factory assembly line. It might have random data on it from the chemical manufacturing process. The probability / improbability of that drive having Shakespeare's first sentence of Hamlet on it are calculated by the math in both this thread and the earlier math proofs thread.
Clearly, the odds are that the drive will be essentially devoid of useful data until an intelligent process intervenes. The important point here being that a drive can have structure without having data.
Likewise with DNA, we can have a double-helix formed chemically that has no useful data on it. That strand of DNA will be unable to form an amoebae (or any or living form). But if we sequence the A, C, G, and T bases properly, that strand of DNA could form any living creature that we desired. Like the hard drive, the difference is the data. For DNA, the data is in the sequencing.
Watson's math is valid for the random/natural/unaided formation of data.
DNA contains data whenever that DNA is capable of forming life.
So long as we are talking about data, Watson's math proof is valid, contrary to your conclusion above.
"They do now, yes. The question is not what is the minimum now, but what's the minimum necessary." - Physicist
A better question would be "What's the minimum observed gene count?", which as you point out, is a very high number because every cellular organism in our entire scientific evidenciary library has DNA.
I see you avoided the issue. Not surprising.
I am waiting with bated breath for the Cargo Cult version of ID......
It ought to be a hum-dinger....
That's an irrelevant question, if you're talking about the beginnings of life.
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