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ERVs and how Evolutionists bluff with the data

Jan 23, 2013
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Old post, but I don't think that this really got a completely satisfactory reply, so let me explain why the model you're proposing doesn't quite match with evolutionary theory. The monkeys/typewriters/Shakespeare model is a decent analogue for the "random mutation" part of evolutionary theory, but not for the "natural selection" part. In evolutionary theory, mutations which make an organism (or chain of chemicals, or whatever is under evolutionary pressure) less fit for their environment do not get passed down, and mutations which are beneficial do get passed on. Which means that they're kept.

Let me illustrate this by using your "throwing all heads with a fair coin" analogy. Let's make the number smaller than infinity, for the sake of argument. Let's make it an even million. A million heads is what we're trying to throw.

Now, I hope you'll agree that the probability of throwing heads a million times in a row by throwing one fair coin a million times is exactly the same as the probability of throwing heads a million times by throwing a million fair coins once. So that's what we're going to do.

So you throw a million coins and the most likely scenario is that roughly half of them will be heads. Now, if we were following the model you propose, what we'd do is gather them all up and we'd throw them again. But if we're using heads as an analogue for beneficial traits then those heads would actually be kept. So what we do is we leave all the heads where they are and we pick up the roughly half-a-million coins which show tails, and it's those that we throw a second time.

And so on and so on.

To express that as the Shakespeare example, rather than having monkeys typing away on typewriters, we'll have them typing away on computer programs which are similar to word processors. We'll stick with the ground rules that you set out for illustrative purposes - we're trying to replicate When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men’s Eyes and the monkeys are always typing full words (perhaps the program the monkeys are using has a spellchecker that automatically changes the letters to the most similar word).

The first line of the sonnet is the same as the title. If on that first line the monkey types "Fish custard trousers flap cat antidisestablishmentarianism quantum disperate", then the next time s/he comes to type that line, the line will be blank once more. However, if the monkey types "Duo behold contact happening Who and birthday carpet", then the next time s/he comes to type that line the word "and" will already be filled in and after typing the 5th word, the program will skip over to the 7th. If s/he then types "Television train Disgrace bobble serendipity [and] Loquacious Wookie" then the next time s/he comes to type that line both the 3rd and the 6th words will already be filled in.

This is not a perfect analogy for evolution, because it implies movement towards a specific goal, and because traits which were once advantageous can become disadvantageous over time, but as a very simplistic explanation as to why your posts on the improbability of evolution are missing a key point, it'll suffice.
 
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Jan 23, 2013
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It might just be those particular pictures, but I have to say that the skulls and the spines of the elephant and elephant shrew look more similar to each other than the skulls and spines of the two shrews do.
 
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