Proof against abiogenesis/evolution -- affirmative proof of God

[Tiberius]

I believe life is the product of intelligent design, not random chance.

And your argument falls flat on its face here, because this statement on which your entire argument is based is just plain old WRONG.

Evolution is NOT random.

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

It's really not particularly difficult to come up with a cogent estimate on probabilities for biochemistry

You keep on saying this and people keep on telling you that you are wrong. So lets see how good your probability model is.

Can you use your model to predict the ratios of A, B and C formed in the above reaction.

EDIT there seems to be a problem with my photobucket skills as the wrong image is being linked. Anyway on the arrow above there should be Nitric acid( HNO3) and Sulphuric acid (H2SO4). I'll try to get the right one up shortly.

OK the right image is up, strange I didnt do anything!??

 

[TheGnome]

You guys are scientists and engineers, not financial estimators. I've had a fair bit of science and engineering, but not specialized to the extent as my financial work. It's really not particularly difficult to come up with a cogent estimate on probabilities for biochemistry. You gotta start with the number discrete combinations that molecules containing H, O, and N form with various reactions with each other (you can assume which simple compounds are present in the fantasy primordial goo), and compare that to the number of discrete combinations of H, O, and N in adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. You can always make it more complicated and more sophisticated than that if you'd like. Without even running the numbers, I can tell that the probability of even a couple base pairs forming from chance is gonna be stupendously small. Please no rebuttals to this point unless you give me a number. Show me the money.

I'd really like you to perform a probability calculation on TemperateSeaIsland's post. The thing is, probability doesn't work with chemical reactions unless you include all of the variables, and even then I'm not sure how it would work. Just because elements can have a certain number of interactions doesn't mean that all of those interactions are equally likely--especially in a particular circumstance.

The best example I can give you is when using Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Inference. You're telling me that you should always, always use Maximum Likelihood when estimating the probability of the event. Bayesian Inference utilizes a prior. If previous experiments showed a predictable pattern of an event, why wouldn't I use Bayesian Inference?

Anyway, I am interested to see if you can find out the nitration reaction TemperateSeaIsland posted by using probabilities.

 

[TheManeki]

You guys are scientists and engineers, not financial estimators. I've had a fair bit of science and engineering, but not specialized to the extent as my financial work.

Most of these topics would have been covered in freshman chemistry, with the last bits coming in sophomore organic chemistry or sophomore heat transfer class for engineers. If you've had "a fair bit of science and engineering," you should have learned a good chunk of these things already, yet you haven't. Is your "fair bit" is closer to "hardly any"?

Please no rebuttals to this point unless you give me a number. Show me the money.

Your constant dismissal of valid criticisms is extremely amusing. When coupled with your ignorance of science and apparent disdain for scientists and engineers, you're really starting to remind me of Dilbert's Pointy-Haired Boss.

 

[thaumaturgy]

This is really good work, and you're about half way to the answer I'm looking for. Now all I'm looking for is for you to plug in some answers based on assumptions, which can either be simple or complex, depending on your personal preferenes, and reduce it to a single number.

As I said I'm not a biochemist. But I have to wonder if you actually read what I wrote. The opportunities are still pretty immense in terms of choices. But, at its most simplistic we already know that certain of the chemical foundations of life: the development of complex amino acids from more simple organics is demonstrably possible putting that at very close to 100% in the probability collection.

If you want to be crass about it, apparently ideas leveraged off the Oro experiment I mentioned earlier have been used in Japan to commercially produce adenine, an amino acid. (Source: Biochemistry, A.L. Lehninger, Worth Publishers, Inc., NY. 1979)

Now we've got amino acids, lets talk about condensing them. Because these types of bonds are thermodynamically unstable in dilute aqueous solutions we need condensing agents to do the job. Perhaps it was carbodiimide, which, interestingly enough is also formed from HCN (as is used in the Oro experiment mentioned earlier! That's serendipitous and certainly improves our odds of formation.) In addition there are some phosphates that could have acted as condensing agents, and these can be formed from the action of some of the above listed products from HCN reactions (namely cyanoguanidine reacting with phosphate minerals).

But that isn't our only choice: we have the possibility of adsorption on common mineral phases such as clays or apatite. One researcher, A. Katchalsky found that montmorillonite (a type of clay) promotes condensaton reactions under mild conditions of polypetides with high yields (SOURCE: ibid).

So now, not only have we got something close to a 100% chance of development of the initial building blocks, but we've also got significant opporutnity and pathways to forming the more complex compounds.

Already your foundational assumptions of "random chance" are demonstrably out the window.

A researcher by the name of S. Fox and his collegues described the production of amino acid-polymers or what they called proteinoids from the above various sources of organics and condensing agents with heat. 50 to 60 degrees C in the presence of phosphate condensing agents with some time was all it took.

So basically all the pieces are in place to give a much higher probability.

The point of this was not only to give me a chance to look back through a 29 year old biochem text book (which is probably woefully out of date by this time, hopefully one of our biochem students will chime in), but to emphasize to you that the probabilities are much higher than a mere 50/50 but much more complex than a mere coin flip.

I can't put the numbers to the overall process since we don't know what the overall process was. There are alternative hypotheses to these above. I didn't go on to tell you what was on the following pages as they go into greater detail. And this is just an intro biochem text.

When I estimated the cost of Air Force weapon systems, engineers always appreciated the work I did because I was willing to take their data, make assumptions, generate a range of probable costs

Then I highly recommend you do the same honor to the biochemists and chemists on this board and take the actual data that is out there to better understand the systems.

AND understand that the system isn't just a series of Bernoulli Trials.

That's why I'm not at all bothered by the vociferousness of your objections.

Look I make part of my living doing statistical analyses for my work and statistical design of experiment. I'm not the greatest statistician, but I think you should be bothered by the "vociferousness of our objections" precisely because I perceive what you have done is do an in-depth statistical analysis of the wrong system. You are modelling coin flips, not biochemistry.

If you are not bothered by our objections you have not learned the fundamental flaw of your reasoning and that says nothing about us but rather about you and your ability to understand what it is you are discussing.

So take the data that you have, the intelligence you have, and the math skills you have, and stick a stake into the ground.

Spoken as a truly uninformed individual on this topic. If I stick a stake in the ground it will be almost as uninformed and meaningless as yours, except I will have a better understanding of the system. But I don't have the numbers nor will I concede to simply making them up in order to make a strawman type argument.

The whole point of this discussion is to show you that the system is demonstrably not a random coin-flip set of experiments.

Have you really been unable to understand that? Do we need to put it in giant font and glaring colors?

That's what I've done, and I hope you will as well. Punting the question for 50 years down the road doesn't cut it.

Punting??? Give me a break. There are serious scientists who have done this work for years. This is hardly punting.

 

[thaumaturgy]

You keep on saying this and people keep on telling you that you are wrong. So lets see how good your probability model is.

Can you use your model to predict the ratios of A, B and C formed in the above reaction.

EDIT there seems to be a problem with my photobucket skills as the wrong image is being linked. Anyway on the arrow above there should be Nitric acid( HNO3) and Sulphuric acid (H2SO4). I'll try to get the right one up shortly.

OK the right image is up, strange I didnt do anything!??

True-Blue, this is a very important post. You really need to think about the question here. If you like, you can look up the background information on yields.

This is a very important concept in chemistry. I cannot stress this enough. Temperate here has given you a simple test of your "probability" modelling abilities. If you can hold up to them using your simplified system, then we will have something to discuss.

 

[thaumaturgy]

By the way, wouldn't it be cool if you guys collaborated to develop a wicked abiogenesis model? Rather than arguing back and forth and talking past each other, we could actually accomplish something productive. I'd be happy to help.

Quoted for hilariousness.

Are you familiar with the Monty Python movie "Life of Brian"? There's a great scene where Pontius' friend Biggus from Rome comes to "help" Pontius during a public presentation before the assembled crowd.

 

[Vene]

You keep on saying this and people keep on telling you that you are wrong. So lets see how good your probability model is.

Can you use your model to predict the ratios of A, B and C formed in the above reaction.

EDIT there seems to be a problem with my photobucket skills as the wrong image is being linked. Anyway on the arrow above there should be Nitric acid( HNO3) and Sulphuric acid (H2SO4). I'll try to get the right one up shortly.

OK the right image is up, strange I didnt do anything!??

You have no idea how much I want True_Blue to answer this post.

 

[thaumaturgy]

I'll keep saying this as many times as I have to--how could ATP be synthesized in the absence of a scientific lab or a living organism?

Just a guess or two to propose non-living cell origins:


From Biochemistry 2nd Ed. A.L. Lehninger, Worth Publishers, Inc., NY. 1979 PG 1039

"M. Calvin and his colleagues have pointed out that hydrogen cyanide is a precursor of derivatives of carbodiimide. They have found that cyanamide, which is formed form hydrogen cyanide by application of radiant energy, dimerizes under primitive-earth conditions to yield cyanoguanidine, which is readily converted in to carbodiimide derivative. This condensibg reagent promotes formation of simple peptides from amino acids, as shown in Figure 37-5. It also promotes formation of phosphate and acetate esters from alcohols, of pyrophosphate from orhtophosphate, and of ADP from AMP from phosphate."


From: Kenjiro Hattori1, Keiko Takahashi1 and Keiichi Sasao, 1984, ATP and AMP formation from ADP in the presence of cyclodextrin, Journal of Inclusion Phenomena and Macrocyclic Chemistry, Volume 2, Numbers 3-4 / September.

Abstract A new nonenzymatic formation of ATP from ADP was observed in the presence of cyclodextrin in a phosphate buffer of pH 7.00 at 37.0°C under at mospheric conditions. Time conversion curves were obtained in the presence of

-cyclodextrin and heptakis-(2,6-dimethyl)-

-cyclodextrin. The effect of adding

-cyclodextrin, MgCl2, phosphate buffer and creatine was examined kinetically as well as the effect of cyclohexanol as an inhibtor.

Again, just a guess. But certainly shows these things apparently can happen outside of a living cell.

 

[thaumaturgy]

A cure for cancer has to be precise, but a mathematical model of abiogenesis does not. It only has to use reasonable assumptions and reasonably relate to the subject matter.

Quoted for truth. Did you hear that True-Blue, it has to reasonably relate to the subject matter.

Why don't you learn some chemistry and biochem and then try your analyses.

You've been shown a huge number of chemical points here, now go and learn some.

 

[RealityCheck]

Ah, probability - the right tool in the wrong hands once again. Using probability alone, without any understanding of chemistry or physics, is like trying to use a saw without a handle.

 

[thaumaturgy]

During the next year or so, I will be starting threads on many other critical stages of evolution and keep showing you guys from as many angles as I can just how empty atheism really is from the standpoint of science. All of these threads will feature my own independent thought, not a regurgitation of other's research, just as with this thread.

Spoken with the hubris only ignorance of the science can bring.

But more importantly why do you think there's something bad about citation of research???

Why is it Creationists seem to dislike citation of research? (You are by no means the first to make this sort of statement on this board.)

I'll tell you why I think that is :

The creationists don't understand the science and can't even begin to cite it. It is too overwhelming to them.

It is a minor miracle to see a Creationist cite actual science. It happens rarely.

You have your area of specialization and you think that provides you with insight into how science works. Sorry, but it clearly doesn't. You have demonstrated you don't understand the chemistry and that's fine, you are a lawyer or business man or whatever.

But don't for a second think your ignorance of our field is some strength on your part.

Just because you can type it does not a valid hypothesis make.

 

[thaumaturgy]

Ah, probability - the right tool in the wrong hands once again. Using probability alone, without any understanding of chemistry or physics, is like trying to use a saw without a handle.

I think it might be more like trying to use a handle without a saw to cut down a tree.

Sure there's a high probability that if you have a saw handle you have a saw. I'd put it at, oh P(Saw) = 0.5 and call it a day. There, tree cut down!

Yay statistics!

 

[thaumaturgy]

You have no idea how much I want True_Blue to answer this post.

Hey! This is a great opportunity to run a statistical anlaysis on it!

I'm going to make some assumptions:

1. Creationists actually care about facts. Probability I'll call P(f) and set equal to 0.01

2. Creationists actually think other people might know more than they do about any given subject. A probability I call P(hubris) and set at 0.01

3. Creationists actually respond to challenges that show their skill in detailed analysis of information. A probability I'll call P(demonstration) and set at 0.01.

Let's run the numbers!

P(f) * P(hubris)*P(demonstration) = 0.000001

Wow! It seems pretty unlikely. Let's see. I'm guessing that if we watch the next 999,999 posts by True_Blue we will not see him answer the question.

And ironically it is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate both his "statistical analysis" and his "skills" at applying his version of coin-flip chemistry to real world chemistry!

I'm pretty excited now!

 

[thaumaturgy]

You guys are scientists and engineers, not financial estimators. I've had a fair bit of science and engineering,

You are clearly somehow related to financial estimator. I'm guessing that you have not had as much science and engineering as you would like to think you have. Just sitting in class doesn't always mean getting the information.

but not specialized to the extent as my financial work.

It shows.

It's really not particularly difficult to come up with a cogent estimate on probabilities for biochemistry.

Except you demonstrably haven't. You haven't even discussed the chemistrypart! If you only bothered to add some chemistry into the mix you'd have an interesting topic of discussion. But you haven't!

You can always make it more complicated and more sophisticated than that if you'd like.

Complication does not necessarily equal LOWER PROBABILITY. It merely means that some things need to be assessed that are not probabilistic assumptions!

Can you not get it yet? We are not saying you cannot model these things statistically but that you HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM.

I really don't think you've read for comprehension the amount of material presented to you on this thread.

The point is that you DON'T APPEAR TO UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM. You just gin up some numbers and run with it. It's irrational and oversimplified.

Without even running the numbers, I can tell that the probability of even a couple base pairs forming from chance is gonna be stupendously small.

Then why don't you try that very thing...USING CHEMISTRY AS THE FOUNDATION OF THE YIELD CALCULATIONS.

You've been shown the Arrhenius equation, you've been shown some of the potential reactions, now run with THAT information if you think it is so easy.

Or more importantly, ANSWER TEMPERATE'S POST! Show us how easy a SIMPLE system is to "predict"!

Please no rebuttals to this point unless you give me a number. Show me the money.

You get rebuttals because you are desperately in need of education on this.

You don't get numbers because it is very difficult system to oversimplify!

You make assumptions, we have shown you the errors of your assumptions. That does not mean we need to come up with an equally unfounded set of assumptions ourselves.

Your model is a failure from the outset yet you love it so much you fail to see how the real world of chemistry works.

And that is YOUR loss, not ours.

 

[True_Blue]

You make assumptions, we have shown you the errors of your assumptions. That does not mean we need to come up with an equally unfounded set of assumptions ourselves.

Your model is a failure from the outset yet you love it so much you fail to see how the real world of chemistry works.
[/I]

This thread has run it's course, unless someone wants to apply their vast chemical knowledge to do it better. Otherwise, you're simply an armchair quarterback. "I know more about football, and I could throw it better than you!", you yell at the television set. Okay, go out to the football field and throw a football.

If all the evolutionists in the world refuse to write a probability equation for abiogenesis, why would the evolutionists on this forum be any different? You guys fulfilled my expectations.

 

[TheGnome]

This thread has run it's course, unless someone wants to apply their vast chemical knowledge to do it better. Otherwise, you're simply an armchair quarterback. "I know more about football, and I could throw it better than you!", you yell at the television set. Okay, go out to the football field and throw a football.

If all the evolutionists in the world refuse to write a probability equation for abiogenesis, why would the evolutionists on this forum be any different? You guys fulfilled my expectations.

I guess you've finally given up. It's upsetting that you never took the challenge on the nitration reaction. It's very upsetting that somehow you want evolutionists, those who are interested in how organisms change with time, to somehow figure out a probability equation for an event that has nothing to do with evolution.

It's funny, never once in any of the chemistry courses I've taken has probability ever come up. If there is any merit in what you're doing, perhaps you could even get a paper published! Good luck on that.

 

[Vene]

Somehow True_Blue has missed a great chance to prove the validity of his statistic analysis and has also missed some of the work that is being done on abiogenesis. For example, the RNA world hypothesis (1 2).

By the way, kind of hard for me to be an armchair scientist when I am working on a research degree.

 

[Naraoia]

Hehe! It's a cop-out because they said it's either P=1, or that they simply won't give an answer. Until I see an atheist/evolutionist give me a number [that's not P=1], I'm calling it a cop-out.

Have you read the rest of the essay? It's full of numbers. I don't recall that you've commented on any of those.

And, by the way, "we can't give a number" isn't the same as "we won't give a number". In fact it's rather sensible not to give one when we know so little about the conditions under which life or "complex" life can occur. Our sample size is still one.

Tragically, "complexity" is like pornography. In the words of US Supreme Court Justice Stewart, "I know it when I see it." It takes wisdom and discernment to know the different between simplicity, disorganized complexity, and organized complexity.

Ah. Then I assume you have wisdom and discernment, or at least think you do.

Remember three examples I gave? I'll ask you whether each of those represents an increase in complexity (with reasoning, please). Maybe that'll help clarify our intuitive definitions (as I've said, mine isn't exactly mathematical either ):

(1) The evolution of an entirely novel enzyme, nylonase. (abstract)
(2) The evolution of the ability to digest citrate in an organism that previously couldn't do that (abstract)
(3) The evolution of colonial multicellularity in a unicellular alga (abstract)

Oh, and the great virtual example (which, IIRC, has also been cited in this thread):

(+1) The evolution of various logic functions in digital organisms that started with a short genome of simple instructions (rjw's essay)(abstract)

 

[Naraoia]

I hear what you're saying. However, since no scientist was around more than 10,000 years ago, we have no data.

Ah! But no humans were around on the first five days of creation!

I hope you're not going down the Dad Road and saying we can't know what we haven't personally observed.

All we got is assumptions. So come up with some good assumptions that you are comfortable with and post some back-of-the-envelope calculations. You can show PROOF OF CONCEPT without a computer model that could only be run on a Sandia supercomputer.

You can show proof of concept without spouting numbers. And unless I've been reading a different thread from you, that's been going on here for quite a few pages.

I'm really looking for alternative calculations here.

READ THE B***DY TALKORIGINS ARTICLE. And come back with your demands when you've scrutinised the numbers they have.

Sorry for the caps. I can't help but feel that you are playing deaf here, and that's starting to wear my patience extremely thin.

If someone wants to show me, in terms of chemistry, that getting a single, marginally functional DNA strand has a better chance than one over ten to the however-many thousanth or millionth power, we can lay this thread to rest. Without that, you guys are still stuck on 17th century spontaneous generation.

ABIOGENESIS DOESN'T SUGGEST THAT COMPLEX ORGANISMS SUDDENLY CAME FROM SIMPLE MATERIALS.

That's rather a big difference between modern abiogenesis theories and spontaneous generation.

When I look at the sequence of events between Miller and the search for evidence of an anoxic atmosphere, it bears all the hallmarks of a conclusion looking for justification.

Even if that were true you are hardly better with your Bible and all.

During the next year or so, I will be starting threads on many other critical stages of evolution

Go ahead. The more opportunity for science to shine .

and keep showing you guys from as many angles as I can just how empty atheism really is from the standpoint of science.

From the standpoint of science, the supernatural is beyond the horizon. Your endeavour is like trying to show how empty string theory is from the standpoint of Japanese poetry.

Oh, and I don't think you've "shown" us anything other than profound ignorance of science. Which rather detracts from the value of your comments on the "standpoint of science".

All of these threads will feature my own independent thought, not a regurgitation of other's research, just as with this thread.

Ah. Congrats on thinking independently. I really like how you dismiss evidence against your views by calling it "regurgitation of other's research". Unfortunately there are a couple of issues here:

(1) It wouldn't be too realistic to expect us to do all the research we are "regurgitating" (citing is the word you were looking for). It's years' or decades' worth of work by half a world's worth of scientists.

(2) "Regurgitating" (citing) others' research doesn't mean we don't think for ourselves. Independent thinking doesn't mean you can't look at the evidence.

(3) "Regurgitating" (citing) evidence is usually a sign that someone takes
data into account. No matter how independent your thinking is, it won't stand without a basis in reality.

When I started posting to this thread I didn't think you'd anger me. I'm disappointed.