A Second Mathematical Proof Against Evolution [AKA - Million Monkeys Can't Type Shakespeare]

Nutters.org ^ | 28-Jul-2000 | Brett Watson

[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

[Doctor Stochastic]

16/64 can be evaluated by cancelling the sixes to give 1/4.

[Physicist]

Some interesting scientific research has been performed into estimating the minimal gene set required for a living cell,

It took a lot of searching through that long-winded game of 3-card-Monty to find the slight-of-hand, but there it is. The minimum is zero.

[Dukie]

Bump for later reading

[Physicist]

I get around 400 generations, assuming that there are 46 characters used by Shakespeare and that there are 157,175 characters in Hamlet.

[cracker]

The minimum is zero.

Interesting... no genes at all? Just curious.

[Lev]

16/64 can be evaluated by cancelling the sixes to give 1/4.

And lim of sin(x)/n when n goes to infinity is 6.

[medved]

If any Christian out there is only being a good person because he fears an "accounting," I don't trust that person any more than I would trust Jeff.

Tell me that's not better than having the same guy be a muslim and figure Allah WANTS him to rape and pillage...

[aruanan]

Which is why nobody suggests such a thing in the first place. I'm rather amazed that this guy, for all his obvious mathematical ability, hasn't been able to spot his fundamental flaw, or that nobody's bothered to point it out to him.

I also am rather amazed that you don't see your fundamental flaw. In order to have "cumulative selection" there must first exist a mechanism by which this occurs. But having such a mechanism presupposes the existence of that which the mechanism is invoked to explain. It's yet another example of question-begging. You can't invoke "laws of nature" to explain the coming into existence of nature since the laws of nature depend on a pre-existing nature.

[cracker]

I also am rather amazed that you don't see your fundamental flaw. In order to have "cumulative selection" there must first exist a mechanism by which this occurs. But having such a mechanism presupposes the existence of that which the mechanism is invoked to explain. It's yet another example of question-begging. You can't invoke "laws of nature" to explain the coming into existence of nature since the laws of nature depend on a pre-existing nature.

Cumulative selection begins very early in the pre-biotic soup. Even the earliest chemicals that form do not degrade all the way back to their constituents - they do not start over at square one. Thus, when the next round of "random" chemical reactions take place, they are taking place in a more complex environment. The "laws of nature" in fact create the order: the natural progression of "random" chemical interactions creates progressively more and more complex chemicals, with each round of interactions building on those that went before, one step back and two forward.

Complex molecules emerge, and then self-replicating complex molecules, and at that point the selection pressures accelerate because now each successive generation doesn't even need to take the step back.

[general_re]

Serious question - do you think it is important to study history?

[js1138]

You would probably be offended if I asked you to explain the origin of God. Attributing the nature of nature to yet another entity does not explain anything. First causes are unexplained. Live with it.

[grumpster-dumpster]

I hate to be the one to point out a glaring error in your calculations. I know you must have spent much time and effort in this well-documented presentation and I thank you for allowing me the chance to review it.

But you have left out an importaant consideration that mere mathematics cannot overcome; To quote to the great French philosopher/analytical genius J. Cluseau; “Do your minkees have a lisaunce.” If not, we are forced to conclude that the minkees are engaged in an illegal scheme to plagerize the works of Shakespeare. But if these are lisaunced minkees, then the study is merely a “test” of the minkees typing skills. Further we may reasonably conclude that “your dog does not bite!”

Until you can provide proof and confirm the minkees are lisaunced, I’m afraid I will just have to consider this study as more “Junk Science.”

Respectfully,
J. Cluseau
Via: Grumpster

[cracker]

Further we may reasonably conclude that “your dog does not bite!”

Eet's note ma doge!

[<1/1,000,000th%]

LOL! I used to get paid for doing probability and statistics. You are correct.

[grumpster-dumpster]

"Eet's note ma doge!"

FACTS, Hercule! We need FACTS!

[Physicist]

Interesting... no genes at all?

Your red blood cells, for instance. Yeah, I know, you can quibble about mitochondrial DNA, but that misses the point that living cells do not necessarily require DNA to be present in order to survive. It's a question of the cell's needs, what the cell is able to absorb from its environment, and what it has to manufacture for itself. While blood is an unusually hospitable environment to support something as complicated as a red blood cell, the earliest cells probably didn't have very sophisticated needs.

[general_re]

Well, okay, but your red blood cells aren't self-replicating, either ;)

[Phaedrus]

I get around 400 generations . . .

Excellent, but the exercise is a purely hypothetical one not grounded in any reality. It is all speculation with the "rules" cooked by Dawkins and cannot be taken seriously unless one tries very hard.

[Sabertooth]

Whenever I see "mathematical proofs" for or against anything, I always take them with a grain of salt.

Fair enough.

Do you apply that to the theory of random mutagenesis over time and filtered by natural selection as the driving and organizing principle behind evolution?

Isn't that a mathematical argument, of a sort?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an evolution denier... I just think we understand the evolutionary process about as well as we understand gravity... which I also don't deny.

[Lev]

Excellent, but the exercise is a purely hypothetical one not grounded in any reality.

And the million monkeys 'disproof' of evolution is grounded in reality?

It is all speculation with the "rules" cooked by Dawkins and cannot be taken seriously unless one tries very hard.

Dawkins 'cooked' his rules not to prove evolution but to show the difference between a purely random process and a process with a fitness function. Regards.