Jewel,
Originally posted by Jewel
Cells make up every living thing. What evidence is there in this area, which will settle the question of evolutionsim versus creationism? If the theory of evolution is correct, then the accidental synthesis of the DNA molecule had to have taken place.
Actually, that is wrong on two counts. All of the data of evolution point to the common ancestor as already having DNA, so evolution requires only that DNA existed at some point in the past.
Secondly, the abiogenetic hypotheses under consideration do not require an accidental synthesis of anything so complex as a DNA molecule. The only "accidental" synthesis would have been a self-replicating protein or RNA or some other molecular self-replicator, not a full DNA molecule.
As biological science learns more about the complexity of the cellular structure, the realization that this feat is impossible has set in. The DNA molecule can only be replicated in the presence of certain enzymes; numerous, complicated enzymes. Those enzymes themselves can only be replicated in the presence of DNA molecules, So, which came first, the chicken of the egg? It is not enough to simply synthesize these attendant enzymes, virtually at the same time. This is mathmatically improbable, to say the least.
It is useless to try to calculate a mathematical probability in absence of a model. As noted above and according to the abiogenetic hypotheses of merit, a DNA molecule would not have had to self-assemble from scratch simultaneously with the transcription enzymes. Who can make an accurate guess as to the probability of abiogenesis?
And again, this is abiogenesis - a modern hypothesis, not darwinian evolution - a strongly evidenced natural theory of what became of life AFTER it was introduced (by whatever means) on Earth.
You said that "As biological science learns more about the complexity of the cellular structure, the realization that this feat is impossible has set in." I wonder if you had a particular group of people in mind when you said that. Who, exactly is coming to that "realization" about abiogenesis? Last I heard it is still an active research program, with some pretty good starts toward solving the problems of abiogenesis, including the RNA World hypothesis.
http://www.postmodern.com/~jka/rnaworld/rna/ for a brief discussion of RNA World.
http://www.euchromatin.org/Eddy01.htm for a peep-hole into the kinds of technical questions that are being worked on in that field.
With the advent of the electron microscope, science has learned that even singular cells are enormously complicated structures. The advance of science almost daily erodes the already shaky foundation of the theory of evolution.
Can you give some literature that backs up this claim? What do you mean by the "foundation" of the theory of evolution? Do you mean the
real foundation: evidence from many different areas of research, from the fossil record to modern genomics? Or do you mean foundation in some other sense, perhaps in the sense of the origin of the first life?
A single cell contains over 1,000 functioning enzymes. Each enzyme requires a gene to produce it. Each gene might be made up of 1,000 or more nucliatides. Each nucleatide occurs with the arrangement of four particular molecules that form it; thus, there could be 4^1000 possible combinations of these nucleatides to form only ONE of these genes.
In other words, for the probability that the proper sequence for the fomation of ONE nucleatide occurred is 4^1000, which is the same as 10^600. It is difficult to assimilate 10^600, there are only 10^80 electrons in the universe.
What is the proper sequence? How many sequences will yield the same function?
It seems all you are interested in talking about is probabilities of DNA - but DNA was already here when the last common ancestor lived. Knowing it was here, why is it important to know how probable or improbable it is that it arrived here by natural means, except with respect to origin of life hypotheses? We cannot prove how life originated. That is not part of the science of evolution.
The above odds are for the CHANCE synthesis of ONE GENE. These evolutionary processes must link together to eventually form ONE living cell.
Synthesis of ONE GENE by what method? It appears to me that they only show the odds of synthesis of one gene by a completely random linking of nucleotides. No where is it postulated that one gene was ever assembled by a random linking of nucleotides. These odds are kind of meaningless.
The exponents of the numbers allegedly attributed to these processes quite quickly reaches the laughable!
I must point out that those exponents have no meaning where it concerns darwinian evolution, and don't represent the real probabilities involved in abiogensis either. They are just big numbers, really.
