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A Second Mathematical Proof Against Evolution [AKA - Million Monkeys Can't Type Shakespeare]
Nutters.org ^ | 28-Jul-2000 | Brett Watson

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


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: crevolist
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To: Doctor Stochastic
"It's not "speciation via non natural selection" rather it's: "Discover and demonstrate a method of natural speciation that does not depend upon natural selection."

Please explain the difference.

301 posted on 03/07/2002 9:30:44 PM PST by Southack
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To: ableChair
Post #295 is pretty much on target. Nice.
302 posted on 03/07/2002 9:50:00 PM PST by Southack
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To: Gladwin
851212152089199197154191651119147851859113931851205420852114922518195

The guy is either passionate or out-to-lunch, wink wink

Results

The string 851212152089199197154191651119147851859113931851205420852114922518195 did not occur in the first 100000000 digits of pi after position 0.

It is not in the first 100,000,000 digits of pi. How about something shorter?

Results

The string 851212152089199197 did not occur in the first 100000000 digits of pi after position 0.

Nope. Again?

Results

The string 85121215 was found at position 34851875 counting from the first digit after the decimal point. The 3. is not counted.

Success!! Pi does say hello, twice.

The string 85121215 was found at position 61936834 counting from the first digit after the decimal point. The 3. is not counted.

Andy is in Pi 101 times! 100,000,000 digits

303 posted on 03/07/2002 9:50:43 PM PST by AndrewC
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To: PatrickHenry
Placemarker.
1. Lightning causes forest fires.
2. But I can also cause a forest fire.
3. Ergo, the "lightning theory" is falsified.
</southhack mode>

304 posted on 03/08/2002 2:31:11 AM PST by PatrickHenry
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To: Southack
The math in this thread demonstrates that some events will not naturally occur.

No, all that Watson has demonstrated was that you can use randomness where it is not applicable to get unreasonable answers. Neither you nor he have been able to adequately describe how his results have any physical significance. His logic isn't all that good either, since he leaves himself quite wide open to several logical holes, as Physicist mentions in this very thread. Seems to me you should find something more airtight to hang your hat on.

305 posted on 03/08/2002 2:51:12 AM PST by ThinkPlease
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To: Southack
Are you claiming that fossils are superior to actual living specimens in regards to verifying theories and providing scientific data?

In the example I listed, yes.

306 posted on 03/08/2002 2:54:37 AM PST by ThinkPlease
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To: Southack
bump
307 posted on 03/08/2002 2:57:33 AM PST by waterstraat
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To: Southack
The whole point of ID is that speciation is not natural, just as the whole point of the math proof for this thread is that very large amounts of data can not (mathematically) self-form naturally.

The "proof" for this thread shows that very large amounts of data cannot self-form in one step. It's a huge leap to go from there to saying that it can never self-form. The whole point of evolution is that it is done tiny step by tiny step. Nobody has ever claimed that the first cell simply fell together one day in all its modern complexity.

You are now arguing that because said speciation event was not "natural", that it doesn't count.

No, I'm arguing that because that ability arose in the 20th century, it is unable to explain the speciation that occurred prior to the 20th century. People weren't around when the dinosaurs first appeared, so we could not have created them. If you want to claim that somebody else created them, you have to demonstrate who did it and how. Showing what we do now is neither here nor there.

I'm perfectly happy to state that when human beings effect changes in the genomes of organisms, those specific changes are not themselves evolved. But for every such change you can point to, I can point to a host of others that occurred naturally.

Human beings have put satellites in orbit around the Earth. Does that necessarily mean that therefore some intelligence put the moon in place?

308 posted on 03/08/2002 3:09:23 AM PST by Physicist
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To: ableChair
But as I understand it, the accepted view is that some organism, probably single celled, had to appear first. The authors' point was that even the simplest possible organism would still have an enormously complex genetic structure.

That is not the accepted view, I think. It is entirely possibly for self-replicating compounds to exist that bear no resemblance whatsoever to single-celled organisms as we know them today. Simply acknowledging that possibility renders this article moot. Fine - we're not expected to believe that lightning flashed and a human crawled forth from the slime, instead we are supposed to believe that lightning flashed and a single-celled organism such as an amoeba crawled forth.

You are looking at the complexity of single-celled organisms as they exist now and assuming that the first self-replicating "creatures" were at least as complex - bearing analogous structures and such. That is not a requirement for evolutionary processes to occur. Other posters have discussed self-organizing systems - some of those posts might interest you.

In any case, this is all about abiogenesis, in the end, not evolution per se. Am I to assume that you have no objection then to evolution or natural selection, and that in fact your issues involve only abiogenesis?

Of course there is. Indeed, there is some 10 billion years of physical existence before organisms appeared. This is his whole point. Before organisms existed, what created the specific genetic sequence necessary to sustain that first organism?

Oh, I see. No, you misunderstand me. Natural selection is an effect of organisms living in an environment, any environment. To discuss natural selection in any other context is to abstract the effect away from the cause - it would be akin to discussing gravity with respect to a universe that had no physical bodies. Therefore, implicit in my discussion of natural selection is the assumption that there is an a environment, and an organism or organisms. "Before natural selection" would mean, I suppose, that you are really interested in a discussion of abiogenesis. As I said, others can discuss that probably better than I can. Just be aware that there is no requirement that the first self-replicating systems bear any resemblance whatsoever to contemporary organisms, and that there is a such thing as a self-organizing system.

309 posted on 03/08/2002 3:21:44 AM PST by general_re
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To: general_re
Possibly. That description might apply equally well to the possibility that things could just suddenly wink out of existence, though. As Capitalist Eric so ably pointed out, around here we believe in the laws of conservation of mass and energy, young man - and that makes both phenomena rather unlikely, I think ;)

This is the point that I'm stuck at with the "time and contingency" argument for the existence of God. It goes like this.

1) Assume that the universe is infinitely old.

2) Assume that non-existence is a real possibility for everything.

3) Then we would not be here now because all possibilities would have to have been realized including the possibility that everything would pass out of existence. Since nothing comes from nothing, nothing would exist now.

The conservation of energy seems to be a good argument against #2. But it seems to contradict the idea of potency and act; essence and existence.

Also, from philosophy we know that an infinite series of motions cannot exist in reality. There must be a Prime Mover. Time cannot logically recede infinitely into the past since an infinite number of steps would have to have been realized for us to be here now. And an infinite number of steps cannot be realized in actuality.

310 posted on 03/08/2002 3:42:52 AM PST by Aquinasfan
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To: Southack
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.

To start, I'll bet you that whatever apparently (hi Sabertooth) random initial DNA sequence would result in a viable life form in any conditions on earth. My chances of winning are extremely small, as the math shows.

However, over a billion years, I wonder how many DNA sequences tried and died because they didn't result in a viable life form? Something with a very high exponent I'm sure. Enough tries to even out the odds? What we see are the results of the tries that worked.

311 posted on 03/08/2002 4:18:24 AM PST by Quila
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To: Aquinasfan
Well, the time and contingency argument has some problems of its own.

As you've said, the argument goes like this. If the universe is infinitely old, then all possibilities for everything to occur should have occurred, as they've had an infinitely long period of time in which to do so. And if one of those possibilities is the simultaneous non-existence of everything, then that should have happened also. But, here we are, ergo the universe is finite in time.

Problems. One, this only works if you assume that all possibilities must occur within a certain time frame. Probability doesn't work that way - it tells you what is likely to occur, but it does not prescribe what must occur, unless some event can be found that has a probability of 1. Really, it's entirely possible that such an event has a non-zero chance of happening, but simply hasn't happened yet. And if the non-existence of everything really has a probability of 1, that's almost the same as saying that we never existed at all. Yet, here we are. ;)

And, just as a reminder, current scientific theories on cosmology and the orgins of the universe are not reliant on the assumption that the universe has always existed for an infinite length of time - in fact, as I understand it, an infinite universe would contradict current theories on the origin of the universe. However, this is far outside my area of expertise - if this is something you'd like to explore in depth, I suggest you ping Physicist back to the thread. He's far more qualified than I to discuss the current state of thinking in this area.

In any case, back to Aquinas. From the notion of a finite universe, it is deduced that there is at least one being that does not owe its existence to something that came before it - the "Prime Mover", or First Cause, variously posited to be God. What can I say? David Hume dealt with Aquinas in his own fashion better than I could - "Whatever we can conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent."

Who made God? is the logical question in the face of the Prime Mover argument. If we posit one God, why not two, or three? Further, Aquinas predicated all this on the assumption that a First Cause was really necessary to explain existence. I would suggest that it is entirely possible to believe that the universe is the ultimate cause of itself, that it just popped into existence of its own accord, for no particular intelligent reason at all.

After all, given a non-zero probability, and an infinite amount of time.... ;)

312 posted on 03/08/2002 4:30:35 AM PST by general_re
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To: Aquinasfan
Now that I look back on your post a bit more closely, it occurs to me that there's two ways of interpreting that you're "stuck". One, you are looking to find the problems with the argument, as a way of refuting it. Two, and this seems more likely given your handle, you're aware of the problems with the argument, and you're looking for a way to resolve them in order to salvage the argument.

Obviously, though, I have trouble rescuing Aquinas in this argument. Oooops ;)

313 posted on 03/08/2002 5:00:11 AM PST by general_re
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To: PatrickHenry
Well said. Thank you.
314 posted on 03/08/2002 5:05:43 AM PST by cracker
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To: Aquinasfan
AKA the Fundamental Turtle Argument for the existance of God.
315 posted on 03/08/2002 5:35:04 AM PST by Doctor Stochastic
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To: tortoise
Real analog signals have a noise floor

Please try to understand the difference between an artificial analog signal carrying information to be decoded, and a real system, such as the solar system, which has infinite information and no noise floor. This is the difference between the original musical performance and a vinyl recording. Vinyl has a noise floor, the original performance does not. Real systems cannot be fully encoded, and their behavior cannot be fully predicted.

My argument is that life is such a real system and that DNA, while it certainly looks digital and superficially looks like information, it does not in fact, behave like a blueprint or a computer program. You cannot extrapolate the future from DNA. Certainly not viability and certainly not viability in a competitive system.

Viability is a function of the whole system, including selection.

316 posted on 03/08/2002 5:39:08 AM PST by js1138
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To: tallhappy
If we cut open a lemur and found chloroplasts, cell walls, and plant pathways it would be impossible.

Seems like biology, not evolution...

317 posted on 03/08/2002 6:07:56 AM PST by Lev
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To: Southack
That's it. This thread is all about whether large amounts of data can sequence itself naturally, or else requires intelligent intervention.

I asked you before, don't believe you replied. Do you still think feedback indicates intelligence? If not, do you agree that feedback is one of the differences between the two problems?
Regards.

318 posted on 03/08/2002 6:46:39 AM PST by Lev
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To: Southack
The central question that the math proof for this thread answers is "How did DNA (or anything else, such as a book) get its data?"

The is a math proof that the probability of getting a particular number with a fair die is 1/6. Why is it important to mention that it's fair? Because the proof assumes all numbers have equal probabilities. If this is not the case the proof can be thrown away. That's exactly why the proof in the article is junk.

319 posted on 03/08/2002 6:59:52 AM PST by Lev
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To: Southack
Please explain the difference.

Is genetic engineering "natural speciation"?

320 posted on 03/08/2002 9:27:04 AM PST by mlo
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