Probability and evolution from natural causes

xianghua said:

so what? even if we can change about 70% of the protein sequence (about 70 aa in the cytochrome example) without any problem- we will still stay with 30% that we can't change. or about 20^30 different combinations that will make it invalid.

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How is that a problem?

Also, there are thousands of other proteins that are evolving in the genome, not to mention de novo evolution of new proteins. You are limiting the possibilities to just a handful of proteins when that is not how nature works.

xianghua said:

they need to be functional. so if the chance to get one functional part is about one in every bilion sequence then the chance to get them both is about 10^18.

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But they don't have to be a functional part of a sonar system in order to be functional. They can be functioning in another system.

xianghua said:

but it will not be functional in every step. half a sonar will not wotk (and i refer to the critical parts). so a sonar cant evolve stepwise.

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Half a sonar does work. They are called "ears".

xianghua said:

if it's true then how many amino acid we will need to change a vision system into an olfactory system?

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How many acts of desperation are required to concoct a strawman?

if they are realy so close to each other (in the sequence space) then it will be easy to know the answer. i can predict that you cant find the answer to this question. am i right?

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Of course you are right - I cannot even guess at an answer to your strawman proposition.

actually it's a fact. if you will remove some crucial parts from a sonar it will not work at all.

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And yet Beethoven was able to 'hear' by biting on his piano (indirectly).

so you will need at least several parts to form a working sonar.

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If you say so.

Still curious that you think a molecule is a robot and is like a person...

Loudmouth said:

Half a sonar does work. They are called "ears".

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can you hear underwater and detect by this way a far object like a dolphin?

tas8831 said:

How many acts of desperation are required to concoct a strawman?

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where is the srawman? if all biological systems are so close to each other in the sequence space then it need to be easy to know how many change we will need to change any biological system to another.

tas8831 said:

Still curious that you think a molecule is a robot and is like a person...

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do you think that a robot with dna and a self replicating system isnt evidence for design?

xianghua said:

if it's true then how many amino acid we will need to change a vision system into an olfactory system?

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1. doesn't make sense because olfactory systems predate visual systems.
2. It would depend highly upon what sort of olfactory system and vision system we were talking about. The number of genes for those varies greatly in nature. What relevance would the number have, given it would take more mutations than olfaction arising independently, given that there is no functional overlap between these senses. Two senses that would make for a far better comparison would be the sense of touch and the sense of hearing.
3. This isn't a natural progression for evolution to take, because sensing changes in light has nothing to do with sensing chemicals in the air or in water. Olfactory systems evolved independently of visual systems.


if they are realy so close to each other (in the sequence space) then it will be easy to know the answer. i can predict that you cant find the answer to this question. am i right?[/QUOTE]
-_- really close together in terms of sequence? Who said that genes for the sense of sight were particularly similar to genes for the sense of smell?

All gene sequences share at least 25% the same base pairs in order (assuming the ones compared are the same length) just because there are only 4 bases in DNA. So, for any two random sequences of the same length, 75% of one would have to be changed to match the other at most.

xianghua said:

actually it's a fact. if you will remove some crucial parts from a sonar it will not work at all. so you will need at least several parts to form a working sonar.

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-_- what do we design sonars to do? Echo-locate and nothing else, in the most efficient way possible.

How does evolution develop a sonar? Through gradual specialization of sensory organs that can already detect vibrations. Heck, even humans can learn to echo-locate, and our ears aren't specialized for it at all. Nowhere near as good as a dolphin, but worth mentioning. So clearly, some of the specialized parts of a dolphin aren't necessary to echo-locate, they just improve it.

xianghua said:

can you hear underwater and detect by this way a far object like a dolphin?

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I can hear underwater, which means that my ears have function underwater. Therefore, you don't have to have the whole system come together at once. Some hearing is better than no hearing, so even a human level of hearing underwater will be selected for. Not only that, the ancestors of cetaceans were land dwelling mammals like we are, so they would have already had functioning ears.

xianghua said:

where is the srawman?

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Right here:

"if it's true then how many amino acid we will need to change a vision system into an olfactory system?"

Can you cite for me the evolutionary biologist that has posited such a transformation?

if all biological systems are so close to each other in the sequence space then it need to be easy to know how many change we will need to change any biological system to another.

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More strawman - and an admission that you cannot tell the difference between related genes, their altered proteins, and body systems.

do you think that a robot with dna and a self replicating system isnt evidence for design?

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Kinesin does not have its own DNA.

I have no idea what you are talking about anymore.

Loudmouth said:

I can hear underwater, which means that my ears have function underwater.

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but you cant use it as sonar. so it isnt "half a sonar".

tas8831 said:

Right here:

"if it's true then how many amino acid we will need to change a vision system into an olfactory system?"

Can you cite for me the evolutionary biologist that has posited such a transformation?

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according to evolution many genes evolved from other genes, including complex systems.

tas8831 said:

Kinesin does not have its own DNA.

.

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i dont speak about kinesin but about a walking creature.

pshun2404 said:

What is incorrect or correct about this presentation....

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This is Fred Hoyle's argument against neodarwinism evolution. Most people do not understand math enough to carry on a discussion with Hoyle. My son explained to me how to come up with a formula to determine probability and it actually is not that difficult to do.

This all comes down to the monkey at the keyboard trying to type out Shakespear. Only instead of typing to B or not to B. He types out to P or not to P.

Mathematics of Evolution. (Fred Hoyle).

Speedwell said:

But we know that the probability space is not flat to begin with

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Actually a recent Nova program talks about Origami and how the universe is unfolding. This is actually a valid theory and it is used to explain worm holes and how we can travel around the universe very rapidly. Now that we no longer believer that warp speed is possible.

DogmaHunter said:

First, you clearly aren't grasping the actual length of geological time and how much opportunity for change and speciation that presents to an evolutionary process.

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Swing and a miss, nice try though. Gould is no longer around but you may want to have a talk with Niles Eldredge about the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which they developed in 1972. The reconstruction of Oroville Dam’s flood-control spillways is underway. I can assure you the problem they had last spring had nothing to do with gradualism. It had everything to do with rapid change over a very short period of time. If you do not understand catastrophic theory then your not going to be able to deal with situations like they had at Oroville this year. They are still working on trying to rebuild and recover.

The idea of punctuated equilibrium originated long after the idea of gradualism. Darwin saw evolution as being "steady, slow, and continuous". Darwin was good friends with James Hutton and a student of Hutton's theory of 'uniformitarianism' vs catastrophic theory.

joshua 1 9 said:

The idea of punctuated equilibrium originated long after the idea of gradualism. Darwin saw evolution as being "steady, slow, and continuous". Darwin was good friends with James Hutton and a student of Hutton's theory of 'uniformitarianism' vs catastrophic theory.

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This must have been a remarkable friendship, since Hutton died on 26 March 1797, nearly twelve years before Darwin was born. I think that you are confusing him with Charles Lyell (1797-1875), the author of Principles of Geology.

xianghua said:

but you cant use it as sonar. so it isnt "half a sonar".

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How obtuse can you be? It's half of what is required to make a functional sonar system. It cannot be a functional sonar system itself, or it would not be half of it. This is blindingly obvious.

joshua 1 9 said:

Swing and a miss, nice try though. Gould is no longer around but you may want to have a talk with Niles Eldredge about the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which they developed in 1972. The reconstruction of Oroville Dam’s flood-control spillways is underway. I can assure you the problem they had last spring had nothing to do with gradualism. It had everything to do with rapid change over a very short period of time.

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"a very short period of time", being millions of years still. "Short" on geological timescales. Not exactly "overnight", though.

PE is not some kind of alternative to gradualism.
PE theorizes (very succesfully) how the process of evolution "accelerates" under certain circumstances.

If you do not understand catastrophic theory then your not going to be able to deal with situations like they had at Oroville this year. They are still working on trying to rebuild and recover.

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Not sure what this dam has to do with anything.

The idea of punctuated equilibrium originated long after the idea of gradualism. Darwin saw evolution as being "steady, slow, and continuous".

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Then Darwin was wrong about that. And PE does not contradict gradualism.

Darwin was good friends with James Hutton and a student of Hutton's theory of 'uniformitarianism' vs catastrophic theory.

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Let's just cut to the chase here... there's no point in going back to what Darwin said. That was 2 centuries ago. Biology made a "bit" of progress since then.

Darwin was correct about the core idea and it's remarkable that he figured it out. But Darwin got a lot of stuff wrong as well concerning the underlying mechanisms etc.

Regardless, if you are going to argue against modern scientific idea, it seems wise to actually argue against the currect theory, instead of limiting yourself to knowledge of 200 years ago.

Wakalix said:

How obtuse can you be? It's half of what is required to make a functional sonar system.

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as far as i aware no. if it was true then we should be able to catch sound waves like a dolphin if a near-by dolphin will use his echo system.

xianghua said:

according to evolution many genes evolved from other genes, including complex systems.

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A gene is not a complex system.

i dont speak about kinesin but about a walking creature.

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After you posted a link to a video of kinesin.

joshua 1 9 said:

This is Fred Hoyle's argument against neodarwinism evolution. Most people do not understand math enough to carry on a discussion with Hoyle. My son explained to me how to come up with a formula to determine probability and it actually is not that difficult to do.

This all comes down to the monkey at the keyboard trying to type out Shakespear. Only instead of typing to B or not to B. He types out to P or not to P.

Mathematics of Evolution. (Fred Hoyle).

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I note that Hoyle wrote, according to that review, "Haldane's so-called cost principle is an illusion." That is interesting, seeing as how there is a whole little sub-field of creationism that trumps up the 'cost principle' (Haldane's dilemma) to declare that evolution is impossible.

Can your son demonstrate this calculation, using relevant and empirically-derived values?

Hoyle couldn't.