the self replicating watch argument

[Rivga]

Sorry to see such mishandled.

How is it mishandled? I copied and pasted from his own link, that he copied numbers from.

I did not wish to build a strawman or misrepresent the facts so copying and pasting the Link xianghua provided would be the most logical approach.

If Xianghua had carried on reading his own link he would of realised that it was infact saying the Opposite to what he was saying. It was providing the counter argument to his position.

This would be same if I said that scripture is pro-homosexuality and then provided a link to Leviticus 20:13 as my evidence.

Yes, man presents like he has mastered biochemistry and genetic engineering, but when it comes to show time, we see zip. Zero other than modifications and other lifeform base constitutes (like enzymes) the source of the soup.

Really man presents like he is a master of biochemistry & genetic engineering, both sciences are often quoted to "be in it's infancy". Are you so afraid of scientific discovery that you have to just tell untruths? - that is what I'd call Mishandled.

 

[doubtingmerle]

xianghua, the questions will not go away. You may wish that they go away but they will not. Please answer these questions. Once more:

1) You had told us that you thought animals were probably made over a period of hundreds of millions of years, with the fossil record as evidence of the order. Are you now changing your mind?
2) Do you or do you not think different animals were probably made over a long period of hundreds of millions of years?
3) Do you or do you not think the fossil record is an indication of the order they were made? Were mammals made hundreds of millions of years after trilobites?
5) Do you or do you not think that the first Eohippus were made close to the time of the first Hyracotherium, as the fossil record indicates?
6) You have stated that all zebras, horses and Eohippus probably came from a common ancestor. Do you or do you not still believe this?
7) There is nothing close to a zebra fossil that has been found over 5 million years old. But there are probably thousands of known Eohippus around 50 million years old. How is it that you say they both came from the same ancestor when there must have been no zebras 50 million years ago, and no Eohippus in the time of zebras? Did Eohippus or its kin evolve into zebras?​

I am trying to understand how you think it happened. If you refuse to tell us how you think it happened, then I will have to guess. Do you want us to guess what you believe, or will you come out of your corner and tell us what you believe?

You cannot declare victory unless you first come out of your corner.

You answered only one of my questions:

I am asking you if you think it is possible that God took the nearly identical DNA of the Hyracotherium and made a few (instantaneous) changes to make the Eohippus. Do you or do you not think it is possible God did this?​

You replied:

as i said: anything is possible by designer. but you ask me why we should not believe in a designed evolution so i gave you at least 2 reasons: lack of evidence and the fact that every designed object we know about was design by instantaneous process.

Wow, where do I begin to unpack that?

First not every designed object was built in an instantaneous process. For instance, take the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, and the Manhattan Project. I work as an engineer, and come to think of it, I have never once seen an instantaneously created process of anything significant, so I am baffled why you think the "design" of evolution had to be quick like all other design projects.

Your one example of an "instantaneous" design is actually laughable. You quote a source that spent a long time developing membrane materials that can self propogate, and somehow take that as evidence that all designed creations are instantaneous. That is not even close to what happened in that experiment.

Also, I have not found evidence that creatures need a designer other than the forces of nature. But let's put that aside, and for the sake of argument, suppose that creatures had a design and all designed objects are made instantly. That brings us back to the question. Hyracotherium lived about 55 to 45 million years ago. They are not considered to be in the horse family, but they are very close to the Eohippus, which appeared about 52 million years ago. Eohippus and similar dog-sized browsers are the only members of the horse family found back that far. Ok, now how did the first Eohippus come into existence? If there were Hyracotherium around that were virtually identical for several million years before Eohippus, why could it not be that God took the Hyracotherium genome, made a few changes, and came up with Eohippus? You have already said it is possible. But don't you say it is probable? Can you think of a method that God used to make the first Eohippus as opposed to modifying something like the nearly identical Hyracotherium?

And please don't come back with that "instantaneous" design answer, please. I have told you repeatedly I am not asking you how fast. The transformation of the Hyracotherium genome could have been quite quick, it you postulate a designer. (I don't postulate a designer, but I am asking about you.) I am asking how you think it happened. Did a nuke go off, and out popped an Eohippus? Did God transform the Hyracotherium (or near kin) into an Eophippus genome? Did a dino break wind and out came an Eohippus?

by this explanation we can expain anything. so its not a scientific claim. this is the problem with talkorigin argument. if we will find for instance that a dolphin has genes that are more similar to bats genes then to other dolphins you can just claim that its the result of convergent evolution.

How many times do you need me to repeat this? When we speak of nested hierarchies, we are not saying every single protein fits in perfectly with the nesting. Evolution is a chance process, and lots of things were going on. Not everything fits in perfectly with the hierarchy. But what we find is that the statistical evidence shows that the broad range of agreement of many variables over many animals is overwhelming evidence.

When you do the same analysis on cars, it does not show a nested hierarchy.

Regarding the shark/fish/human genome issue, you do raise an interesting issue. By all accounts the zebra fish should be closer to humans than sharks. But for many proteins we find the opposite. If you read the actual study (http://labs.biology.gatech.edu/labs/streelman/Venkatesh_et_al_PLoSB2007.pdf) you will find discussion of this. It turns out that the main fish line has had a huge duplication event in the genome. All this duplication has given the fish enormous freedom in changing various parts of the redundant genes. As a result, the fish genome in the studied area has changed a lot. The shark genome, by contrast shows a slow rate of change. All this leaves the shark closer to the human in some proteins, even though the shark split off from the human line sooner.

 

[DogmaHunter]

who is talking about generations at all? i just used evolutionery logic.

ow boy........

"evolutionary logic", without generations ey?

And then you wonder why we say that you don't seem to understand the first thing about evolution........

means small steps+time= big step.

accumulation of small steps per generation = big steps after many generations.

so i gave one example that disprove this logic.

No. You pointed to something that literally has nothing to do with it and then pretended that it means something. Like you always do. And as has been explained to you so many times that it isn't even funny anymore.

 

[xianghua]

You do realise that the link provided above comes to the conclusion:

"Therefore it is entirely feasible that for all practical (i.e. functional and structural) purposes, protein sequence space has been fully explored during the course of evolution of life on Earth (perhaps even before the appearance of eukaryotes)."

A part from that do you actually realise what they are saying, they are talking about maximum possible limits. Not all of the possible sequences would be actually possible, due to the nature of how cells fold.

And finally they say: I am guessing you did not understand a word of this

"Finally, we conclude that the number 20^100 and similar large numbers (e.g. Salisbury 1969; Maynard Smith 1970; Mandecki 1998; Luisi 2003; Carrier 2004; de Duve 2005) are simply ‘straw men’ advanced to initiate discussion in the same spirit as the ‘Levinthal paradox’ of protein folding rates (Levinthal 1969; Zwanzig et al. 1992). 20^100 is now no more useful than the approximate 2×10^1 834 097 books present in Borges' (1999) fantastical ‘Library of Babel’ and has no connection with the real world of amino acids and proteins. Hence, we hope that our calculation will also rule out any possible use of this big numbers ‘game’ to provide justification for postulating divine intervention (Bradley 2004; Dembski 2004)."

lol really you have just provided us with the research written to Debunk your argument.

actually the opposite is true for several reasons:

1) they argue that a protein can be functional with only two kinds of amino acids: hydrophilic and hydrophobic. in reality most proteins use at least several amino acids so this claim is doubtful to begin with.
2) they discuss about only small proteins: 100 aa long. when in reality a tipical protein is about 300 aa long.
3) so even if we accept their position we only reduce it from 20^300 to 2^150. and its still a huge number.

or as they admit:

"The exploration of longer chains of 100 amino acids with only two types of residue is obviously much less complete".

so not even close.

 

[xianghua]

I am trying to understand how you think it happened. If you refuse to tell us how you think it happened, then I will have to guess. Do you want us to guess what you believe, or will you come out of your corner and tell us what you believe?

i already said that im not sure about the horse case (several times). i even told you that i have no problem that human was created at a different time (after dinos for instance). so why you ask again when i already gave a simple answer?

First not every designed object was built in an instantaneous process. For instance, take the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, and the Manhattan Project.

its still a kind of instantaneous process since it didnt take millions of years. its also the result of human limitation. are you saying that god cant make human by instantaneous process? im sure not.

You have already said it is possible. But don't you say it is probable?

no because the reasons i mention above: there is no empirical evidence for evolution and so far any designed object is the result of instantaneous process (besides human limitations as i mention above).

Not everything fits in perfectly with the hierarchy. But what we find is that the statistical evidence shows that the broad range of agreement of many variables over many animals is overwhelming evidence.

again: the same is true for vehicles (we can clasify them in a general hierarchy) but it doesnt prove any evolution.

When you do the same analysis on cars, it does not show a nested hierarchy.

yes it does:

Regarding the shark/fish/human genome issue, you do raise an interesting issue. By all accounts the zebra fish should be closer to humans than sharks. But for many proteins we find the opposite..

great. so talkorigin claim: "It would be very problematic if many species were found that combined characteristics of different nested groupings" is simply false.

 

[xianghua]

accumulation of small steps per generation = big steps after many generations.

right. accumulation of small steps per one month in a car= big step after many years.

 

[Speedwell]

i already said that im not sure about the horse case (several times). i even told you that i have no problem that human was created at a different time (after dinos for instance). so why you ask again when i already gave a simple answer?




its still a kind of instantaneous process since it didnt take millions of years. its also the result of human limitation. are you saying that god cant make human by instantaneous process? im sure not.





no because the reasons i mention above: there is no empirical evidence for evolution and so far any designed object is the result of instantaneous process (besides human limitations as i mention above).




again: the same is true for vehicles (we can clasify them in a general hierarchy) but it doesnt prove any evolution.




yes it does:

View attachment 220439




great. so talkorigin claim: "It would be very problematic if many species were found that combined characteristics of different nested groupings" is simply false.

Why do you keep posting that fake chart of motor vehicle development? What do you think it proves? The real developmental history of motor vehicles is nothing like that.

 

[DogmaHunter]

right. accumulation of small steps per one month in a car= big step after many years.

Which is not evolution. The "generation" part, is kind of important.
As well as the "reproduction with variation" and "natural selection".

Can't have biological evolution without those ingredients.

But why do I even bother explaining it for the upteenth time, right?
It's not like it's going to register in that brain of yours....

 

[PsychoSarah]

here is one reference:

How much of protein sequence space has been explored by life on Earth?

"This gives an extreme upper limit of 4×10^43 different amino acid sequences explored since the origin of life"

Reading through your source, you will find why they arrive at that number when you consider this:
1. They only evaluate the key binding regions present on proteins, not the whole protein. So, variations of proteins that have the same functional regions are not accounted for.
2. They evaluate each region individually rather than in combination. That is, each individual functional region may have appeared some time in Earth's history, but not necessarily all combinations of them that can occur. That is, the 4x10^43 number doesn't account for combinations. Plenty of proteins don't have a single functional region, especially large ones such as hemoglobin.
3. This isn't the number of mutations, dude. In case you have forgotten, most mutations hit non-coding regions. Hence the huge difference between my calculation (which takes into account ALL mutations) and theirs (which only accounts for changes in amino acid sequence). Additionally, if you were to try to say "but they obviously cover all the relevant ones, since they change functional sequence", you'd be incorrect. In only covering that which, in 2008, was known to be functional, they wouldn't cover any evolutionary developments that happened as a result of genes becoming broken. In case you have forgotten, several broken genes contribute to human intelligence. So your assertion that life has had no more than 10^50 "chances to evolve" is inaccurate. Heck, detrimental mutations also contribute to evolution, and any which result in a loss of function wouldn't be accounted for here. Never thought I'd see an ID supporter neglect to account for detrimental mutations.
4. I think you personally overestimate how genetically different you are from everything else on this planet; functional regions tend to be conserved heavily, and the most different regions of your DNA from that of other organisms are the junk regions that don't do anything.
5. In mentioning those junk regions, note that this article of yours is almost 10 years old. Genetics is the fastest developing field of scientific inquiry, so much so that even papers 5 years old are terribly behind.
6. You've dug a nice deep pit for yourself, considering your past arguments about how unlikely you think mutations resulting in functional genes are. Weird that you'd turn around and act as if they were an inevitability all along just because of how many generations have passed on this planet -_-

In short, your article has problems, as does your interpretation of it.

i dont think so. we know for instance that a specific function is rare as about one in 10^77 sequences:

Estimating the prevalence of protein sequences adopting functional enzyme folds. - PubMed - NCBI

A source from 2004 is too dated to be in line with the progress of the field of Genetics now, and your source is just an abstract. Do you understand how many more functional sequences were discovered over the course of 14 years?

"this implies the overall prevalence of sequences performing a specific function by any domain-sized fold may be as low as 1 in 10^77"

You really should know better than to post a source that old that is only an abstract by now.

 

[Rivga]

actually the opposite is true for several reasons:

1) they argue that a protein can be functional with only two kinds of amino acids: hydrophilic and hydrophobic. in reality most proteins use at least several amino acids so this claim is doubtful to begin with.
2) they discuss about only small proteins: 100 aa long. when in reality a tipical protein is about 300 aa long.
3) so even if we accept their position we only reduce it from 20^300 to 2^150. and its still a huge number.

or as they admit:

"The exploration of longer chains of 100 amino acids with only two types of residue is obviously much less complete".

so not even close.

Do you know how those numbers can about? What the study that first arrived at them was trying to achieve? Obviously not as you are misusing it in such a laughable way.

I will give you a clue - they started the mathematical model knowing that it was complete crap - why would they do this?

 

[xianghua]

Reading through your source, you will find why they arrive at that number when you consider this:
1. They only evaluate the key binding regions present on proteins, not the whole protein. So, variations of proteins that have the same functional regions are not accounted for.
2. They evaluate each region individually rather than in combination. That is, each individual functional region may have appeared some time in Earth's history, but not necessarily all combinations of them that can occur. That is, the 4x10^43 number doesn't account for combinations. Plenty of proteins don't have a single functional region, especially large ones such as hemoglobin.
3. This isn't the number of mutations, dude. In case you have forgotten, most mutations hit non-coding regions. Hence the huge difference between my calculation (which takes into account ALL mutations) and theirs (which only accounts for changes in amino acid sequence). Additionally, if you were to try to say "but they obviously cover all the relevant ones, since they change functional sequence", you'd be incorrect. In only covering that which, in 2008, was known to be functional, they wouldn't cover any evolutionary developments that happened as a result of genes becoming broken. In case you have forgotten, several broken genes contribute to human intelligence. So your assertion that life has had no more than 10^50 "chances to evolve" is inaccurate. Heck, detrimental mutations also contribute to evolution, and any which result in a loss of function wouldn't be accounted for here. Never thought I'd see an ID supporter neglect to account for detrimental mutations.
4. I think you personally overestimate how genetically different you are from everything else on this planet; functional regions tend to be conserved heavily, and the most different regions of your DNA from that of other organisms are the junk regions that don't do anything.
5. In mentioning those junk regions, note that this article of yours is almost 10 years old. Genetics is the fastest developing field of scientific inquiry, so much so that even papers 5 years old are terribly behind.
6. You've dug a nice deep pit for yourself, considering your past arguments about how unlikely you think mutations resulting in functional genes are. Weird that you'd turn around and act as if they were an inevitability all along just because of how many generations have passed on this planet -_-

In short, your article has problems, as does your interpretation of it.

ok. i will try to do that simple. you can find the full paper from 2004 by searching the pdf file. what is your main objection to that paper actually?

 

[doubtingmerle]

Xianghua, you hint that you might accept that an Eohippus evolved into the horse and zebra over 50 million years. Let's guess that you accept it as true. If you can allow all that evolution to happen from Eohippus to Zebra, why can you not accept that God likely made the minor change from Hyrcocatherium to Eohippus?

You hint that you accept that Hyrocatherium were around when Eohippus first came into existence. Let's guess that you do. If your God created Eohippus, what method do you think is more likely for creating Eohippus as compared to making some simple changes to the Hyracotherium?

By the way, "Fast" is not a method.

so why you ask again when i already gave a simple answer?

Because you are evading these questions. Once more these are the questions you refuse to answer.

1) You had told us that you thought animals were probably made over a period of hundreds of millions of years, with the fossil record as evidence of the order. Are you now changing your mind?
2) Do you or do you not think different animals were probably made over a long period of hundreds of millions of years?
3) Do you or do you not think the fossil record is an indication of the order they were made? Were mammals made hundreds of millions of years after trilobites?
5) Do you or do you not think that the first Eohippus were made close to the time of the first Hyracotherium, as the fossil record indicates?
6) You have stated that all zebras, horses and Eohippus probably came from a common ancestor. Do you or do you not still believe this?
7) There is nothing close to a zebra fossil that has been found over 5 million years old. But there are probably thousands of known Eohippus around 50 million years old. How is it that you say they both came from the same ancestor when there must have been no zebras 50 million years ago, and no Eohippus in the time of zebras? Did Eohippus or its kin evolve into zebras?
​

Please. I am trying to understand you. I am looking for simple yes or no answers about what you believe. Why are you so evasive?

​

its still a kind of instantaneous process since it didnt take millions of years. its also the result of human limitation. are you saying that god cant make human by instantaneous process? im sure not.

Again, I am not asking if you think it was instantaneous.

Even if the move form Hyracotherium to Eohippus was instantaneous, it could have still been by modifying the DNA. Do you have any evidence that God did not change Hyro DNA to get Eohippus DNA?

no because the reasons i mention above: there is no empirical evidence for evolution and so far any designed object is the result of instantaneous process (besides human limitations as i mention above).

Is there empirical evidence for dinosaurs hurling chunks and those chunks bouncing together to form the first Eohippus?

If you deny both the evolution and hurling chunks method, can you tell me a method you think is more likely than hurling chunks or modifying DNA?

"Instantaneous" is not a method.

Yes it does:

View attachment 220439

You missed my point. I explained to you that cars do not have the same consistent evidence for nested hierarchy that animals have.

Take any 50 vehicles in a used car lot and group them by your hierarchy. Then check which ones have air conditioning. Will you see the same hierarchy? Check which ones have a Chevy decal. Check which ones have a CD player. Check the brand of spark plugs. Will you see the same hierarchy?

No, you will not.

The hierarchy in animals is shown to a high degree of statistical significance over a wide range of characteristics.

great. so talkorigin claim: "It would be very problematic if many species were found that combined characteristics of different nested groupings" is simply false.

Excuse me, but the fish in your study do not show "combined characteristics of different nested groupings." They all show characteristics consistent with the fish grouping. They may have had protiens that diverged faster than shark proteins, and we have a good idea why. That is different from combining different characteristics of different nested groupings.

 

[xianghua]

Which is not evolution.

so dont call it evolution but "change". so why small steps in a car cant produce a big step in the future?

 

[Skreeper]

so dont call it evolution but "change". so why small steps in a car cant produce a big step in the future?

Because evolution only happens in biological organisms. And don't you dare say "self-replicating car"!

 

[doubtingmerle]

Because evolution only happens in biological organisms. And don't you dare say "self-replicating car"!

He will say it before you can say "Jackie Robinson".

 

[DogmaHunter]

so dont call it evolution but "change". so why small steps in a car cant produce a big step in the future?

We are discussing evolution theory. A theory of biology.

I don't see the point about starting to talk about something completely different, when the goal remains to make a point about biological evolution....

Here's a suggestion: if you wish to discuss biological evolution, perhaps restrict yourself to actual biology.

 

[xianghua]

Even if the move form Hyracotherium to Eohippus was instantaneous, it could have still been by modifying the DNA. Do you have any evidence that God did not change Hyro DNA to get Eohippus DNA?

no. do you have evidence that he indeed changed one into another one?

You missed my point. I explained to you that cars do not have the same consistent evidence for nested hierarchy that animals have.

simply wrong. we can arrange them in a general hierarchy: cars, vans and trucks. very simple.

Take any 50 vehicles in a used car lot and group them by your hierarchy. Then check which ones have air conditioning. Will you see the same hierarchy?

No, you will not.

and we get the same result with creatures. if you will check apes phylogeny by a specific gene you will get one tree and if you will check another gene you will get another tree and so on for many genes.

Excuse me, but the fish in your study do not show "combined characteristics of different nested groupings."

are you kidding? those gene are more similar to human then to other fishes (like the zebra fish). so many DNA characteristics are shared with human but not with those other fishes (human and shark are different texonomic groups).

 

[Speedwell]

simply wrong. we can arrange them in a general hierarchy: cars, vans and trucks. very simple.

And so you just arrange them in a hierarchy to suit yourself, entirely ignoring the real developmental chronology of motor vehicles.

That's fine, if that's what you want to do, but then you imply that paleontologists do the same witless thing with fossils, which is an insult.

 

[xianghua]

We are discussing evolution theory. A theory of biology.

I don't see the point about starting to talk about something completely different, when the goal remains to make a point about biological evolution....

Here's a suggestion: if you wish to discuss biological evolution, perhaps restrict yourself to actual biology.

since according to evolution small steps over time will become a big step, then this question actually very relevant to evolution.

 

[DogmaHunter]

since according to evolution small steps over time will become a big step, then this question actually very relevant to evolution.

So your question is about the principle of accumulation?

You need to have it demonstrated that the continued accumulation of small things will end up becoming a big thing?

That 1+1+1+1+1+1+...+1+1+1+1 will eventually add up to billions?
That the continued accumulation of moving 1 inch at a time will eventually add up to moving from many miles?


What objection could you possibly have about that?
You know how "addition" works, right?