Evolution is mathematically impossible

[tas8831]

but we dont know that.

Robot penguin says then you'll need a bigger ark. A WAYYYYYYY bigger one.

 

[tas8831]

I appreciate your effort in explaining this. I really do. You obviously have a lot of knowledge of proposed evolutionary processes. If I relied on a paper that has been refuted, then I stand corrected.

You did, and it only took me re-posting it 5 times.


Sheesh...

I was under the impression that convergent nucleotide sequences had been documented.

Its that lack of relevant background biting you.

And here come the 'Yeah, but...'s...

If this is true, then surely specific nucleotide substitutions would have been required. That is not mathematically possible.

Really? Getting hammered on that bogus "but my MATH!" crap once already was not enough?

I think a core belief among proponents of NDT is that numerous pathways to complexity exist.

I know that a core belief in creationists lacking relevant backgrounds think trying to bamboozle - even themselves - with big numbers will totally disprove that which their minister tells them is false.

If echolocation occurred in three separate lineages, then it is believed that evolution could have taken any one of a huge number of routes to reach those endpoints. If only one or a few pathways were possible, then convergence would be unthinkable.

Starting from scratch, like you tried to make it out to be. Another indicator of a lack of relevant background in creationists is thinking that NDT posits that it is all total 'random chance, all at once' falling together of nucleotides.

You cite Sanford in one of your fallacious disproofs - he should have known better but in his book even he implies that mutations had to have been one after the other, in order. Crazy.

How is it mathematically possible that an actual geneticist of sorts (Sanford) could so misrepresent evolution? Or maybe the probability is 1.0 that he misrepresented it on purpose?

This leads me to another question... in human evolution... since there are about 3.2 billion nucleotide pairs, the probability of a point mutation replacing a specific nucleotide with a specific base is 1 x 10^-10.

And here you are again with your totally bogus scenarios!

Just stop!

...That we means that a total of 600,000 x 150 mutations/generation x 10,000 = 900 billion mutations. If evolution of man required millions of mutations,

SMH....

Where do you people get this stuff??? Did you just make that up out of thin air?

Do you think using big numbers will make it true that Jehovah made a man from dust?

how do you account for the fact that one specific mutation would require an estimated 2 trillion births to accomplish?

How do you account for the fact that you are misrepresenting NDT yet again and thinking you are making some amazing point?

How is it that people presenting themselves as so adept at math make such silly errors? WHY would it tale 2 trillion BIRTHS? I'm betting that you can;t even understand why I am asking...

Do you think that the gradual evolution of intelligence did not require a single specific nucleotide substitution out of the millions that occurred?

And here you go again.

WHAT "single specific nucleotide substitution" are you referring to?

Surely you have seen refutations of this sort of backwards probability garbage "proving" that any specific person cannot actually be alive because of the probabilities involved? Heck - SFS already told you that this sort of thing is hogwash!

You get refuted on one amazing fake disproof of evolution, and you are all 'Yeah, but, what about THIS amazing math?'

Too funny, too predictable, same errors...

 

[pitabread]

That is not mathematically possible.

You'll never have enough information to make that claim.

 

[Speedwell]

I appreciate your effort in explaining this. I really do. You obviously have a lot of knowledge of proposed evolutionary processes. If I relied on a paper that has been refuted, then I stand corrected. I was under the impression that convergent nucleotide sequences had been documented.
There is obviously a lot more to echolocation than correct amino acid sequences. You mentioned that there is significant molecular homology between echolocating and non-echolocating species. In reference to the three genes that are involved in the auditory aspect of echolocation (a total of about 21,000 nucleotides...referenced in several papers) what do you suppose the nucleotide difference is, for example between echolocating and non-echolocating bats? If there is substantial molecular homology, then that means that few nucleotide sequences are responsible for the extremely complex adaptation of that one part of echolocation. If this is true, then surely specific nucleotide substitutions would have been required. That is not mathematically possible.
I think a core belief among proponents of NDT is that numerous pathways to complexity exist. If echolocation occurred in three separate lineages, then it is believed that evolution could have taken any one of a huge number of routes to reach those endpoints. If only one or a few pathways were possible, then convergence would be unthinkable. This leads me to another question... in human evolution... since there are about 3.2 billion nucleotide pairs, the probability of a point mutation replacing a specific nucleotide with a specific base is 1 x 10^-10. If a SV of .1 is accepted, this suggests a probability a specific mutation to occur and become fixed in the population (according to Ronald Fischer) to be about 1 x 10^-10 / 500 = 2 x 10^-13.
If you assume that humans evolved over 6 million years from a population of about 10,000 individuals, and assume reproduction every ten years, that would be 600,000 generations. That we means that a total of 600,000 x 150 mutations/generation x 10,000 = 900 billion mutations. If evolution of man required millions of mutations, how do you account for the fact that one specific mutation would require an estimated 2 trillion births to accomplish? Do you think that the gradual evolution of intelligence did not require a single specific nucleotide substitution out of the millions that occurred?

"Specific?"

 

[tas8831]

"Specific?"

It is like they just ignore things that make their fantasies more difficult to live out.

 

[tas8831]

Guess he's trying to drum up sales.

https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Mask-Science-J-B-Andelin-ebook/dp/B00PL7WOQK

Pity that the glowing reviews are from people even less informed than our creationist pathologist pal...

 

[sfs]

I appreciate your effort in explaining this. I really do. You obviously have a lot of knowledge of proposed evolutionary processes. If I relied on a paper that has been refuted, then I stand corrected. I was under the impression that convergent nucleotide sequences had been documented.

I'm not aware of documented cases, though it wouldn't surprise me to find a case or two here and there. Parallel evolution to particular nucleotide sequence has been observed within a single species, at least in the case of the gene PfCRT in P. falciparum malaria parasites. One particular altered amino acid in that gene is required to confer resistance to the drug chloroquine; the amino acid has changed via at least 10 independent mutations, and since there are only 4 ways of coding for the new AA, some of them had to be to the same sequence. But that's a trivial case: mutation from an identical starting point in a single codon under intense selective pressure.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a few cases of convergence at the nucleotide level among the genes associated with echo-location. It seems that seven genes have strong evidence for convergent protein evolution (including the three you mention below), at the amino acid level, with typically multiple convergent AAs per gene. That makes it likely that some of the convergent mutations have ended up at the same very short stretch of sequence. But that's the best possible scenario for convergence: homologous genes, doing the same thing in multiple lineages, all under strong selective pressure to change an existing trait in a particular direction. Cases of convergent evolution for a new trait, like antifreeze proteins in Arctic and Antarctic fish, may involve structurally similar proteins but they are unlikely to be the same protein.

In reference to the three genes that are involved in the auditory aspect of echolocation (a total of about 21,000 nucleotides...referenced in several papers) what do you suppose the nucleotide difference is, for example between echolocating and non-echolocating bats?

I have no idea. Not an area I have any direct knowledge of.

If echolocation occurred in three separate lineages, then it is believed that evolution could have taken any one of a huge number of routes to reach those endpoints. If only one or a few pathways were possible, then convergence would be unthinkable.

Well, no. Almost all of the traits required for echolocation were already present in the species ancestral to all three lineages, as indeed was primitive echolocation (something we can do after a fashion, too). The genes in question are all hearing-related, I believe. That selection for increased hearing acuity should produce convergent evolution in hearing-related genes is really not shocking at all. Now if two lineages evolved entire hearing systems from scratch that involved all the same genes -- that would very hard to understand.

If there is substantial molecular homology, then that means that few nucleotide sequences are responsible for the extremely complex adaptation of that one part of echolocation.

What makes you think these changes constitute an extremely complex anything?

I think a core belief among proponents of NDT is that numerous pathways to complexity exist.

It's a simple observation that numerous pathways even to most simple changes exist, and highly different molecular solutions to produce the same result are easy to find, so no, this isn't just something biologists imagine.

If evolution of man required millions of mutations

It didn't. Why make that assumption?

Do you think that the gradual evolution of intelligence did not require a single specific nucleotide substitution out of the millions that occurred?

No, I quite doubt that evolution of intelligence required a single specific nucleotide substitution. Do you have any evidence that it did?

Okay, now you try answering a few questions. What do you think happened? We are clearly related genetically to the great apes, that is, we clearly share a genetic common ancestor with chimpanzees. All of the genetic differences between us, including all of the functional ones we know of so far, are completely consistent with having been produced by mutation. So why do you think they weren't produced that way?

 

[pitabread]

Guess he's trying to drum up sales.

https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Mask-Science-J-B-Andelin-ebook/dp/B00PL7WOQK

Pity that the glowing reviews are from people even less informed than our creationist pathologist pal...

"This landmark book..."

Oh, that's adorable!

edited: I read some of the intro of the book. Right off the bat the author equates the theory of evolution with a religious philosophy and claims there is no scientific evidence for it.

So that's it, just yet another creationist who isn't able to acknowledge the reality of what they are up against.

edited part 2: Skimming through a bunch of it, it's just the usual creationist arguments. Nothing new but the author still calls it a "landmark book". Amazing.

 

[inquiring mind]

What do you think happened? We are clearly related genetically to the great apes, that is, we clearly share a genetic common ancestor with chimpanzees. All of the genetic differences between us, including all of the functional ones we know of so far, are completely consistent with having been produced by mutation. So why do you think they weren't produced that way?

I’m just wondering what makes you so certain that a similar genetic make-up with the chimpanzee necessarily translates to having a related or a common ancestor? Couldn’t God’s building blocks just be very similar in this case, after all I've read they’re like 60% similar when it comes to a banana. And, have you never considered the possibility that gene mutations or genetic recombination have nothing to do with macro evolution, maybe they’re just some sort of unknown multi-purpose mechanism (or different types of programmed micro evolution going on maybe) designed by the Creator? You don’t have to provide a text book answer, I’m just curious what your thoughts are?

 

[Speedwell]

I’m just wondering what makes you so certain that a similar genetic make-up with the chimpanzee necessarily translates to having a related or a common ancestor? Couldn’t God’s building blocks just be very similar in this case, after all I've read they’re like 60% similar when it comes to a banana. And, have you never considered the possibility that gene mutations or genetic recombination have nothing to do with macro evolution, maybe they’re just some sort of unknown multi-purpose mechanism (or different types of programmed micro evolution going on maybe) designed by the Creator? You don’t have to provide a text book answer, I’m just curious what your thoughts are?

A common ancestry is the simplest explanation, given what is known about the evolutionary process. Yes, the genome is made of God's building blocks, assembled by random variation and natural selection.

 

[46AND2]

I’m just wondering what makes you so certain that a similar genetic make-up with the chimpanzee necessarily translates to having a related or a common ancestor? Couldn’t God’s building blocks just be very similar in this case, after all I've read they’re like 60% similar when it comes to a banana. And, have you never considered the possibility that gene mutations or genetic recombination have nothing to do with macro evolution, maybe they’re just some sort of unknown multi-purpose mechanism (or different types of programmed micro evolution going on maybe) designed by the Creator? You don’t have to provide a text book answer, I’m just curious what your thoughts are?

It isn't just similarity. It is patterns of similarity AND differences. The differences are very important. For example, if species A has a clear mutation in a specific gene, and we look and see the same mutation in Species B, and this is observed repeatedly, is it not consistent with common ancestry between the two species?

 

[sfs]

I’m just wondering what makes you so certain that a similar genetic make-up with the chimpanzee necessarily translates to having a related or a common ancestor? Couldn’t God’s building blocks just be very similar in this case, after all I've read they’re like 60% similar when it comes to a banana. And, have you never considered the possibility that gene mutations or genetic recombination have nothing to do with macro evolution, maybe they’re just some sort of unknown multi-purpose mechanism (or different types of programmed micro evolution going on maybe) designed by the Creator? You don’t have to provide a text book answer, I’m just curious what your thoughts are?

A reasonable question. As @46AND2 says, it's the patterns of similarities and differences that are very hard to explain except by common descent. Picking up their example, when we see a particular gene that has been disabled by an identical mutation in several species, the odds are overwhelming that the species will cluster together on the phylogenetic tree, because the mutation happened only once and was inherited by closely related species. Ditto for the insertion of a virus into the DNA -- the same insertion found in multiple species will be found in ones that could have inherited it from a common ancestor, and will not be found in more distantly related species.

We can also look at genetic differences that have no effect on the organism, like "synonymous mutations", that is, changes to the DNA that don't affect the protein produced by a gene. These typically have minimal effect on the organism. We find that closely related species have very few synonymous differences, while more distant species have a lot. There is no functional reason for this pattern. If we look at differences overall, we can also see that they look exactly the way we would expect if they had been caused by lots of mutations. I've written up this piece of evidence in more detail here.

 

[tas8831]

"This landmark book..."

Oh, that's adorable!

edited: I read some of the intro of the book. Right off the bat the author equates the theory of evolution with a religious philosophy and claims there is no scientific evidence for it.

So that's it, just yet another creationist who isn't able to acknowledge the reality of what they are up against.

edited part 2: Skimming through a bunch of it, it's just the usual creationist arguments. Nothing new but the author still calls it a "landmark book". Amazing.

They are all so predictable. The Dunning-Kruger effect is powerful in them.

 

[tas8831]

I’m just wondering what makes you so certain that a similar genetic make-up with the chimpanzee necessarily translates to having a related or a common ancestor?

As I know you have seen this before, since I have posted it more than a dozen times, I am sure you will ignore it or look for ways to dismiss it, but the rationale is quite simple - by using tested methods, we can reconstruct phylogenies.


I forget now who originally posted these on this forum, but I keep it in my archives because it offers a nice 'linear' progression of testing a methodology and then applying it.

The tested methodology:

Science 25 October 1991:
Vol. 254. no. 5031, pp. 554 - 558

Gene trees and the origins of inbred strains of mice

WR Atchley and WM Fitch

Extensive data on genetic divergence among 24 inbred strains of mice provide an opportunity to examine the concordance of gene trees and species trees, especially whether structured subsamples of loci give congruent estimates of phylogenetic relationships. Phylogenetic analyses of 144 separate loci reproduce almost exactly the known genealogical relationships among these 24 strains. Partitioning these loci into structured subsets representing loci coding for proteins, the immune system and endogenous viruses give incongruent phylogenetic results. The gene tree based on protein loci provides an accurate picture of the genealogical relationships among strains; however, gene trees based upon immune and viral data show significant deviations from known genealogical affinities.

======================

Science, Vol 255, Issue 5044, 589-592

Experimental phylogenetics: generation of a known phylogeny

DM Hillis, JJ Bull, ME White, MR Badgett, and IJ Molineux
Department of Zoology, University of Texas, Austin 78712.

Although methods of phylogenetic estimation are used routinely in comparative biology, direct tests of these methods are hampered by the lack of known phylogenies. Here a system based on serial propagation of bacteriophage T7 in the presence of a mutagen was used to create the first completely known phylogeny. Restriction-site maps of the terminal lineages were used to infer the evolutionary history of the experimental lines for comparison to the known history and actual ancestors. The five methods used to reconstruct branching pattern all predicted the correct topology but varied in their predictions of branch lengths; one method also predicts ancestral restriction maps and was found to be greater than 98 percent accurate.

==================================

Science, Vol 264, Issue 5159, 671-677

Application and accuracy of molecular phylogenies

DM Hillis, JP Huelsenbeck, and CW Cunningham
Department of Zoology, University of Texas, Austin 78712.

Molecular investigations of evolutionary history are being used to study subjects as diverse as the epidemiology of acquired immune deficiency syndrome and the origin of life. These studies depend on accurate estimates of phylogeny. The performance of methods of phylogenetic analysis can be assessed by numerical simulation studies and by the experimental evolution of organisms in controlled laboratory situations. Both kinds of assessment indicate that existing methods are effective at estimating phylogenies over a wide range of evolutionary conditions, especially if information about substitution bias is used to provide differential weightings for character transformations.



We can ASSUME that the results of an application of those methods have merit.


Application of the tested methodology:

Implications of natural selection in shaping 99.4% nonsynonymous DNA identity between humans and chimpanzees: Enlarging genus Homo

"Here we compare ≈90 kb of coding DNA nucleotide sequence from 97 human genes to their sequenced chimpanzee counterparts and to available sequenced gorilla, orangutan, and Old World monkey counterparts, and, on a more limited basis, to mouse. The nonsynonymous changes (functionally important), like synonymous changes (functionally much less important), show chimpanzees and humans to be most closely related, sharing 99.4% identity at nonsynonymous sites and 98.4% at synonymous sites. "



Mitochondrial Insertions into Primate Nuclear Genomes Suggest the Use of numts as a Tool for Phylogeny

"Moreover, numts identified in gorilla Supercontigs were used to test the human–chimp–gorilla trichotomy, yielding a high level of support for the sister relationship of human and chimpanzee."



A Molecular Phylogeny of Living Primates

"Once contentiously debated, the closest human relative of chimpanzee (Pan) within subfamily Homininae (Gorilla, Pan, Homo) is now generally undisputed. The branch forming the Homo andPanlineage apart from Gorilla is relatively short (node 73, 27 steps MP, 0 indels) compared with that of thePan genus (node 72, 91 steps MP, 2 indels) and suggests rapid speciation into the 3 genera occurred early in Homininae evolution. Based on 54 gene regions, Homo-Pan genetic distance range from 6.92 to 7.90×10−3 substitutions/site (P. paniscus and P. troglodytes, respectively), which is less than previous estimates based on large scale sequencing of specific regions such as chromosome 7[50]. "




Catarrhine phylogeny: noncoding DNA evidence for a diphyletic origin of the mangabeys and for a human-chimpanzee clade.

"The Superfamily Hominoidea for apes and humans is reduced to family Hominidae within Superfamily Cercopithecoidea, with all living hominids placed in subfamily Homininae; and (4) chimpanzees and humans are members of a single genus, Homo, with common and bonobo chimpanzees placed in subgenus H. (Pan) and humans placed in subgenus H. (Homo). It may be noted that humans and chimpanzees are more than 98.3% identical in their typical nuclear noncoding DNA and probably more than 99.5% identical in the active coding nucleotide sequences of their functional nuclear genes (Goodman et al., 1989, 1990). In mammals such high genetic correspondence is commonly found between sibling species below the generic level but not between species in different genera."

--------------------------------


I wonder if the math and evolution genius pathologist Andelin can calculate the odds of any of this...

 

[tas8831]

edited: I read some of the intro of the book. Right off the bat the author equates the theory of evolution with a religious philosophy and claims there is no scientific evidence for it.

Isn't it precious how creationists often "devalue" evolution by claiming it is like what they believe?

And interesting that many creationists insist that they don't need evidence for THEIR religious philosophy, but insist that we do?
So not only are these folks generally incompetent Dunning-Kruger effect victims, but they exhibit (and rely on) double standards.

 

[xianghua]

What part of that would you challenge? It's a fact.

the claim that all creature share a common descent for instance. this isnt a fact.

 

[xianghua]

But we do.

but we dont.

 

[VirOptimus]

the claim that all creature share a common descent for instance. this isnt a fact.

Common descent is incredibly well-supported and clearly a fact.

 

[Speedwell]

the claim that all creature share a common descent for instance. this isnt a fact.

Common ancestry is a reasonable inference from the fact of evolution. Unless a better one comes along, which I notice that you haven't provided.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

but we dont.

Except we do. YOU don't.