Object Lesson on the Impossibility of Abiogenesis

[Split Rock]

Hey! Ya! No kidding!?

Give that man a cig... er ... give that man a clipboard or something!

So, why are you claiming what is improbable is impossible?

 

[AV1611VET]

And your calculations are based on what sequences, buddy? Modern ones that you are using in your model. You are missing my point, in any case, which is that there is no one sequence that must be created (by whatever mechanism) that functions.

Why do you think I change "the" to "a" in my post?

 

[PsychoSarah]

Do you know the difference between "natural selection" and "abiogenesis"?

Did I say "improbable"?

Do you know the difference between "improbable" and "impossible"?

So long as I have a deck to shuffle, no combination of cards that can result from a valid deck is impossible.

And the more decks and people shuffling, the more chance of getting any single combination.

and I would compare getting a functional protein more to the probability of getting a Royal Flush in one's hand than for a whole deck to be shuffled, because proteins come in smaller pieces that can REARRANGE, so it would be a lot like shuffling a deck until the first cards I pulled off the deck contributed to that hand, and holding onto them until I got another card that contributed to that hand, and kept going until I held a Royal Flush.

 

[AV1611VET]

Oh, man -- this gets better by the minute.

Talking with scientists always makes me have to repeat myself n[sup]n[/sup] times.

So, why are you claiming what is improbable is impossible?

Did ... you ... read ... the ... OP ... carefully?

They is mo calmbinashins in 256 proteens then they is secinds in the unyverse.

(Sorry, but this gets old.)

 

[PsychoSarah]

Oh, man -- this gets better by the minute.

Talking with scientists always makes me have to repeat myself n[sup]n[/sup] times.

Did ... you ... read ... the ... OP ... carefully?

They is mo calmbinashins in 256 proteens then they is secinds in the unyverse.

(Sorry, but this gets old.)

And many of the combinations that fail to function in any way will never form. So not every combination you are counting factors into the equation.

 

[AV1611VET]

So long as I have a deck to shuffle, no combination of cards that can result from a valid deck is impossible.

And the more decks and people shuffling, the more chance of getting any single combination.

and I would compare getting a functional protein more to the probability of getting a Royal Flush in one's hand than for a whole deck to be shuffled, because proteins come in smaller pieces that can REARRANGE, so it would be a lot like shuffling a deck until the first cards I pulled off the deck contributed to that hand, and holding onto them until I got another card that contributed to that hand, and kept going until I held a Royal Flush.

In the meantime, you would have exhausted 13.8 billion years of time.

 

[SnowyMacie]

The problems with Abiogenesis goes beyond the statistical probability of it. Abiogenesis is not so much a theory, but the scientific study of the beginning of life.

 

[PsychoSarah]

In the meantime, you would have exhausted 13.8 billion years of time.

Try it. it isn't impossible to do, you shuffle a deck, you pick a card. If the card couldn't go in a Royal Flush, put it back and shuffle again until you draw a card that does go in that hand. put it off to the side until you have a Royal flush by repeating the same process.

 

[AV1611VET]

The problems with Abiogenesis goes beyond the statistical probability of it. Abiogenesis is not so much a theory, but the scientific study of the beginning of life.

I certainly won't argue that.

But Abiogenesis is the study of something that never happened.

It's just something to waste time in the classroom.

 

[AV1611VET]

Try it. it isn't impossible to do, you shuffle a deck, you pick a card. If the card couldn't go in a Royal Flush, put it back and shuffle again until you draw a card that does go in that hand. put it off to the side until you have a Royal flush by repeating the same process.

We're not dealing with Royal Flushes, Sarah.

We're dealing now with a deck of 256 different cards.

(I shoulda known using a deck of cards would confuse you guys. Another good thread ruined by the mentally-blocked.)

 

[PsychoSarah]

We're not dealing with Royal Flushes, Sarah.

We're dealing now with a deck of 256 different cards.

(I shoulda known using a deck of cards would confuse you guys. Another good thread ruined by the mentally-blocked.)

Proteins aren't like cards. They can actually change each other's shape to make them fit, and break apart to fit. I was actually just trying to help by making it more a matter of how protein constituents fit together rather than the proteins themselves. especially considering that unlike in a deck of cards, proteins can have repeats.

But who is to say large protein complexes existed prior to DNA?

 

[PsychoSarah]

so AV, since you like challenges so much, and you tend to give them to people who can't actually do them because you make it impossible or you ask the wrong people, I will give you a simple challenge: get out a deck of cards, and shuffle it until you get a royal flush by pulling the top card, seeing if it can go in a royal flush, putting it back if it can't, and putting it to the side if it can. Just draw 1 card each time, not a second one even if you draw a flush card from the top. Do it for 10-15 minutes or until you get a royal flush, and tell me how many cards you got and how long it took.

 

[SnowyMacie]

We're not dealing with Royal Flushes, Sarah.

We're dealing now with a deck of 256 different cards.

(I shoulda known using a deck of cards would confuse you guys. Another good thread ruined by the mentally-blocked.)

The odds are still the same because everything has been proportionally increased. In fact, they may even be better because I would have 256 different chances to get a royal flush instead of just one. Statistics also aren't legal tender, and are actually fairly malleable. I've been one card away from a royal flush twice in my life, but I probably haven't played enough hands of poker to meet those odds. Another example, the average IQ is 100. If I went out and measured the IQ of everyone in Denver, I feel confident in saying that I'd find that to be true. On the other hand, if I only went to our universities and measured the IQ of PhDs and PhD students, I'd be very hard pressed to find someone with an IQ of 100.

 

[PsychoSarah]

The odds are still the same because everything has been proportionally increased. In fact, they may even be better because I would have 256 different chances to get a royal flush instead of just one. Statistics also aren't legal tender, and are actually fairly malleable. I've been one card away from a royal flush twice in my life, but I probably haven't played enough hands of poker to meet those odds. Another example, the average IQ is 100. If I went out and measured the IQ of everyone in Denver, I feel confident in saying that I'd find that to be true. On the other hand, if I only went to our universities and measured the IQ of PhDs and PhD students, I'd be very hard pressed to find someone with an IQ of 100.

Plus, it is not like every protein that currently exists was ever in some media in which to interact with every other kind of protein with equal probability. some proteins are less common than others.

 

[essentialsaltes]

I don't understand what you're saying.

I made the list up on paper before I turned the cards over.

It's like rolling a die.

Imagine a die with 8x10^67 sides.

Whenever you roll it, it has 8x10^67 ways of landing.

It will land one of those ways.

The odds of that happening (whatever the outcome) are 1 in 8x10^67.

Every time you shuffle cards, you make something equally unlikely happen: 1 in 8x10^67 .

Therefore, it's obvious that things that unlikely are not necessarily improbable. You can make them happen at will.

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "5"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "1"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "2"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "3"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "4"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "5"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "6"?

1 in 6

Your prediction has no effect on the odds of any face of the die coming up.

 

[AirPo]

Imagine a die with 8x10^67 sides.

Whenever you roll it, it has 8x10^67 ways of landing.

It will land one of those ways.

The odds of that happening (whatever the outcome) are 1 in 8x10^67.

Every time you shuffle cards, you make something equally unlikely happen: 1 in 8x10^67 .

Therefore, it's obvious that things that unlikely are not necessarily improbable. You can make them happen at will.



What are the odds that it is going to come up a "1"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "2"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "3"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "4"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "5"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "6"?

1 in 6

Your prediction has no effect on the odds of any face of the die coming up.

The chances are 1 in 6.

The odds are 1 to 5.

You don't want to be accused of being an Arab bookie do you?

 

[essentialsaltes]

The chances are 1 in 6.

The odds are 1 to 5.

You don't want to be accused of being an Arab bookie do you?

Gotta rake the vig off the punters somehow!

 

[crjmurray]

Imagine a die with 8x10^67 sides.

Whenever you roll it, it has 8x10^67 ways of landing.

It will land one of those ways.

The odds of that happening (whatever the outcome) are 1 in 8x10^67.

Every time you shuffle cards, you make something equally unlikely happen: 1 in 8x10^67 .

Therefore, it's obvious that things that unlikely are not necessarily improbable. You can make them happen at will.



What are the odds that it is going to come up a "1"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "2"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "3"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "4"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "5"?

1 in 6

What are the odds that it is going to come up a "6"?

1 in 6

Your prediction has no effect on the odds of any face of the die coming up.

Thank god someone gets it.

 

[Loudmouth]

Now explain that, for the simplest of life to have occurred, 256 proteins would have had to have come together in the correct order, or abiogenesis is a bust.

This is the famous creationist sleight of hand. We aren't talking about the simplest evolved bacteria. We are talking about abiogenesis. You haven't even shown that abiogenesis requires a single protein, much less 256 of them. Until you do so, your calculations are meaningless.

 

[Loudmouth]

Yes, and it gets even worse than that. While a minimal-function cell . . .

Where did you show that? All that has been discussed is the most minimal cell known to exist. No one has shown that this is as simple as it can get, nor has anyone shown that abiogenesis requires a single protein.

For that matter, abiogenesis researchers have observed that random RNA sequences can produce a functional RNA ligase:

Science. 1995 Jul 21;269(5222):364-70.

Structurally complex and highly active RNA ligases derived from random RNA sequences.

Ekland EH1, Szostak JW, Bartel DP.

Seven families of RNA ligases, previously isolated from random RNA sequences, fall into three classes on the basis of secondary structure and regiospecificity of ligation. Two of the three classes of ribozymes have been engineered to act as true enzymes, catalyzing the multiple-turnover transformation of substrates into products. The most complex of these ribozymes has a minimal catalytic domain of 93 nucleotides. An optimized version of this ribozyme has a kcat exceeding one per second, a value far greater than that of most natural RNA catalysts and approaching that of comparable protein enzymes. The fact that such a large and complex ligase emerged from a very limited sampling of sequence space implies the existence of a large number of distinct RNA structures of equivalent complexity and activity.
Structurally complex and highly active RNA ligases derived from ran... - PubMed - NCBI
​