Darwin re-visited

[Biochemist]

You originally said you thought it was a rare event.

It is certainly not rare in microbes. It is rare in species higher than prokaryotes. I don't think it ever happens in eukaryotes. Anyone have any data on this?

 

Bio

[Biochemist]

There is nothing "anti-theist" about debunking the junk science of ID:

Maybe. But there is something distinctly anti-theist about debunking ID when no one brought it up. No one except you.

 

Incidentally, creationist proponents are no more homogeneous that evolutionary biologists. Any treatise that starts with "ID proponents think..." or "creationists think..." is a little like saying "scientists think...". It is a non statement.

 

Bio

[Turtle]

Not true: It addresses the apparent incongruity of the 3 billion years from life to mammal, when the statistical probability is in the range of 1 in 10^3000 Unanswerable? How? They are just different questions. That is how science works.

 

That is the reductio ad absurdum tactic, yet again. :doh: You expect the reader to accept that because the odds against your cherry-picked point are so high, it is an absurd conclusion and this would mean the premise is false. Please do tell, what are the odds of something happening that has never happened before? :applause:

[Biochemist]

There is nothing "anti-theist" about debunking the junk science of ID:

I started this in post 463 of this thread. Re-read the post. The data in that post stands. I don't think anything in that post is contested.

 

Please stop the unrelated ID attacks, and stick to the data.

[Biochemist]

You haven't quoted any scientists or posted any actual science to support your position.

Post # 463 was my first material post here.

[Biochemist]

Your fixation of assuming a preloaded code and then saying no intelligence is required to preload that data is disingenuous and you know it.

Let me ask a different hypothetical. Do me a favor and follow with me:

 

1) If we could drop a handful of chemicals into a plain glass of water and a frog hopped out in 20 minutes, we would say that is pretty surprising, but if it is reproducible, we would just say, well, it happens.

 

2) If sometimes it was a frog, other times it was a bird, we would say, hey this is weird, and we would try to identify what conditions caused "bird" and what conditions caused "frog"

 

3) If it only happened every 100th time, we would look for the unique initial conditions that caused anything,

 

Now, we have an example of quadrillions of little experiments (the complex bio precursors) and we popped out exactly one complex tree.

 

Isn't one possibility really more like #1??????? It really could have happened more than once, but since the frogs are all identical, we can't tell??

 

That is 1) life naturally occurs, 2) it naturally occurs in exactly the way it has, and 3) if the earth's initial state happened again, it would happen again is pretty much the same way?

 

If that were the case a) it is fair to call it "front loading", and :doh: How is this any more theistic than believing in gravity?

[Moontanman]

Let me ask a different hypothetical. Do me a favor and follow with me:

 

1) If we could drop a handful of chemicals into a plain glass of water and a frog hopped out in 20 minutes, we would say that is pretty surprising, but if it is reproducible, we would just say, well, it happens.

 

You would have to be brain dead to be satisfied with "well, it happens" I know of no one whould just accept such a thing.

 

2) If sometimes it was a frog, other times it was a bird, we would say, hey this is weird, and we would try to identify what conditions caused "bird" and what conditions caused "frog"

 

Yeah I think you could say "we" would be interested in what caused the difference.

 

3) If it only happened every 100th time, we would look for the unique initial conditions that caused anything,

 

Yes I think we would look at everything associated with what happened.

 

Now, we have an example of quadrillions of little experiments (the complex bio precursors) and we popped out exactly one complex tree.

 

I have answered this before and I will not do it again.

 

Isn't one possibility really more like #1??????? It really could have happened more than once, but since the frogs are all identical, we can't tell??

 

What you are suggesting is clap trap, bull ****, and dishonest, life didn't just pop into existence and the complexity of life evolved over a huge period of time, it didn't just pop into existence. You should stop suggesting it did, no matter how many times you it will not be that way.

 

 

That is 1) life naturally occurs, 2) it naturally occurs in exactly the way it has, and 3) if the earth's initial state happened again, it would happen again is pretty much the same way?

 

This a gross over simplification and no it wouldn't necessarily happen the same way, there are many possibilities and we are just one of them. If it hadn't happened that way we wouldn't be here to question it.

 

 

If that were the case a) it is fair to call it "front loading", and How is this any more theistic than believing in gravity?

 

It's not the case, we know it's not and front loading is indicative of a guiding intelligence of which there is no need for or indication of. Your idea of front loading is not a viable theory, it reeks of creationism and has no evidence of it's factuality. You just repeating it over and over does not make it any more of a possibility.

 

 

I thouhgt you were going to take your ball and go home, :doh:

[Biochemist]

That is the reductio ad absurdum tactic, yet again.... Please do tell, what are the odds of something happening that has never happened before?

You don't know it never happened before, any more than I do.

 

Probability could be near 100% with similar starting conditions.

[HydrogenBond]

Front loading is analogous to laws of the nature following certain paths in a predictable way. For example, even before a star forms and if we start with only hydrogen, the elements that appear are not just random. We don't get new atoms each time. There is a sequence that is predictable.

 

Life is a little harder to extrapolate this way, but this doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We don't have a complete model of abiogenesis. We lack the logic needed to predict if life will follow a given sequence. The analogy is, say we knew nothing about nuclear fusion. If that was the case, we could assume anything is randomly possible since there are no guiding principles other than random. Without this known logic every star can make up a new periodic table especially since we can't take direct samples. Whatever happens is by chance since can't do it in a logical way.

 

To break out of that circular logic loop, we need something that logical and measurable, like an energy balance, to give things a sense of predictable logic. The fusion in stars follows an energy balance to give us a sense of sequence. It eliminates a wide range of random theories that would be possible without this logic.

 

Let me give a real cellular example of how an energy balance is totally consistent with observation. As was discussed, if a cell is duplicating the DNA, mistakes in base pairing are implicit of slightly higher energy base pairing, because the hydrogen bonding is not at minimum energy. The proof reading enzymes are attracted to these zones to correct mistakes. They can tell which are the mistakes because these are the positions with higher energy. They have an energy flag.

 

This action of those enzymes suggests the potential on the mistakes can be lowered when the proof reading enzymes attaches, but there is still some potential. A further lowering of potential occurs when the mistake is corrected. It takes two steps to the lower the potential. With the potential in the local DNA gone, the proof reading enzymes are now the source of a new potential. To lower that potential they need to leave that spot and will gravitate to other mistakes areas of higher potential. The goal of the entire process is to lower the potential within the DNA implicit of optimized base pairing.

 

If we look in the terms of evolution, modern proof reading enzymes have evolved with the goal of minimizing the energy of the DNA. If they had to evolve again, from scratch, they would have the same predictable goal.

[Biochemist]

This a gross over simplification and no it wouldn't necessarily happen the same way, there are many possibilities and we are just one of them. If it hadn't happened that way we wouldn't be here to question it.

This is a pretty clear statement of your faith position. No data, just postulation.

[Biochemist]

It's not the case, we know it's not and front loading is indicative of a guiding intelligence....

You have not offered a shred of evidence that front loading requires intelligence. And I did not suggest any.

 

I was suggesting that our existing evolutionary tree might be a reproducible endpoint, given similar conditions and another 3 billion years.

 

Wouldn't that suggest the exact opposite of your "obvious" inference?

 

Bio

[Biochemist]

Care to offer alternative explanations for any of this?

Yes. I think all of it (although you might mean some detailed items that I missed).

 

The issues is that we have a default position that any genomic change is a "mutation". No one (that I know of) thinks that mutations are completely "random". If they did, they end up with the probabilistic problem that I outlined in post 463 above.

 

My hypothesis is that these genomic changes that we assume are "mutations" are very highly likely outcomes. So much so that the number of genomic changes that are 1) significant and 2) functional is extraordinarily high. And by "extraordinarily", I mean that they are billions of times more likely than others.

 

They pretty much have to be in order to make the probabilistic numbers work out.

 

If these particular outcomes really are that much more likely, we might even call them "likely".

 

If a series of events are pretty likely, the outcome over time is pretty likely too.

 

My suggestion is that the existing tree that we experienced on earth was initially likely, based on the initial earth state. Genomic changes do indeed occur, but it is a deception to call something a mutation if it is highly likely.

 

Ergo, it would be fair use of English to suggest the code (which resulted in our existing outcome) was "front-loaded", although I prefer my nomenclature- proscribed speciation.

[Biochemist]

Care to offer alternative explanations for any of this?

Further, it is worth noting that if the same (or very similar) genomic alteration happened more than once (which would also be likely in my model) we would be hard pressed to see it. We would either interpret one as a "mutative" variant of the other, or the two events would be identical, hence indistinguishable.

 

Ergo the existing tree actually could have internally replicated multiple times, and we would never have seen it.

 

There are some examples of reproducible "mutations". Certainly with E Coli. I think the notions of "reproducible" and "mutation" should be diametrically opposed.

 

Bio

[modest]

You have not offered a shred of evidence that front loading requires intelligence. And I did not suggest any.

 

I was suggesting that our existing evolutionary tree might be a reproducible endpoint, given similar conditions and another 3 billion years.

 

Wouldn't that suggest the exact opposite of your "obvious" inference?

 

Bio

 

There's a very large line between leaving creationism out of your argument (which I think is appropriate) and denying your idea requires an intelligence or that it is a form of ID.

 

You have (on this forum before) accepted that "proscribed speciation" can be synonymous with "Intelligent Design", and I will drudge the post saying so if you persist in being coy about it.

 

You may not like calling your improbability "Irreducible complexity" nor your pre-coded speciation "front loading" nor your entire "theory", "Intelligent Design". But, the common definitions for these things do apply to what you've said in this forum for years.

 

"proscribed speciation" [math]=[/math] "intelligent design" [math]\neq[/math] "creationism"

 

and it's really that simple.

 

~modest

[Turtle]

...

My hypothesis is that these genomic changes that we assume are "mutations" are very highly likely outcomes. So much so that the number of genomic changes that are 1) significant and 2) functional is extraordinarily high. And by "extraordinarily", I mean that they are billions of times more likely than others.

 

Reductio ad absurdum argument with the probabilities again. It is still an invalid* argument. :) :doh: :eek:

 

*

invalid 2

Adjective

 

2. (of an argument, result, etc.) not valid because it has been based on a mistake

invalid - definition of invalid by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

[Biochemist]

Reductio ad absurdum argument with the probabilities again.

Now I think you are being absurd. You are suggesting that there is some "magical" mechanism that reduces the probability of 3 enzyme systems from 1 in 10^3000 to something reasonable, but (oddly) can't identify exactly what that is.

 

When I take one of several obvious possibilities:

 

1) this is not just much-less-than-random: (your argument)

2) it is likely, you call it absurd.

 

How much more absurd is mine that yours? Or even more critically, why would you rule out mine with evidence?

[Biochemist]

You may not like calling your improbability "Irreducible complexity" nor your pre-coded speciation "front loading" nor your entire "theory", "Intelligent Design". But, the common definitions for these things do apply to what you've said in this forum for years.

 

"proscribed speciation" [math]=[/math] "intelligent design" [math]\neq[/math] "creationism"

 

It completely mystifies me why it is so INCREDIBLY common on these fora to regress to labeling an argument with a negative connotation rather than discuss the underlying data.

 

Most folks on these fora routinely equate creationism with ID (which is fundamentally, ignorance). It is nice that you allowed for (at least) breaking ID out. Try the next step and consider that Behe (who, I think, started ID- but I am not sure) did not discuss abiogenesis (at least not that I know of).

 

I am suggesting that there could be a natural tendency for initial substrates to generate life. That is, not that it could have happened, but that it was likely to happen.

 

We are disagreeing on the likelihood. If it really helps you to label my argument as ID instead of discussing it, feel free.

 

Bio