the self replicating watch argument

[46AND2]

Specifically how is the math missapplied?
If I have a choice of 500 amino acids and only wish to use 20 of these in a specific sequence of say 50 aminos, what is the probability that I could construct my desired sequence by pulling it blindly out of a hat?

This is easy and yields a fantastically large number revealling an equally fantastic and impossibly low probability.
(500×500×500....for 50 times, because at each point there is a 1 in 500 chance we might pick the correct amino out of the hat, this assuming that all of the corrrect aminos are present in the hat at all times).

If we find that the probability is such that the probalistic resources (number of repeats, amino acid molecules, and time available) that we have are exhausted and yet somehow we have pulled the correct sequence from the hat, what should this tell us?

What if this same event repeated a few thousand times in a row (as might be required to build a basic functionally coherent replicator)

Me? I would say that somebody had been monkeying with the hat, rigging the game somehow. A designer of some sort.

You? You would say that my suggestion is silly and that it is completely unremarkable for such improbability to be overcome repeatably over millions of years. Besides, you might say, there must surely be some law at work that magically overcomes the laws of probability and that one must just have faith that one day Scientism will discover this law and then there will be no need to think about somebody who might be playing a game we don't like.

In fact, you can even perform an "impossibly low probability" event, on purpose, right now.

Step 1: shuffle a deck of standard playing cards.

Step 2: deal all 52 cards face up, in order drawn, on the table.

That's all the steps required. Well done.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

The observations of so called intelligence free organic compounds remain functionally incoherent and so demonstrate little apart from the fact that many molecules and interactions used in biological forms occur in other parts of creation under certain conditions.

Wait - who calls organic compounds 'intelligence free' ?

The fact that we've discovered just how many 'molecules and interactions used in biological forms occur ... under certain conditions' - including fundamental metabolic cycles - is precisely what provides encouragement that we're making progress to discovering how life may have got started.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Specifically how is the math missapplied?
If I have a choice of 500 amino acids and only wish to use 20 of these in a specific sequence of say 50 aminos, what is the probability that I could construct my desired sequence by pulling it blindly out of a hat?

This is easy and yields a fantastically large number revealling an equally fantastic and impossibly low probability.
(500×500×500....for 50 times, because at each point there is a 1 in 500 chance we might pick the correct amino out of the hat, this assuming that all of the corrrect aminos are present in the hat at all times).

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that description was correct, its worth remembering that in suitable environmental locations, many quadrillions of molecules would be involved, each interacting many times a second; and this could have occurred in multiple locations on Earth over a period of up to a billion years (Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, the first signs of microbial mats are at around 3.5 billion years).

When you look at it that way, the probabilities seem rather different.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Specifically how is the math missapplied?
If I have a choice of 500 amino acids and only wish to use 20 of these in a specific sequence of say 50 aminos, what is the probability that I could construct my desired sequence by pulling it blindly out of a hat?

This is easy and yields a fantastically large number revealling an equally fantastic and impossibly low probability.
(500×500×500....for 50 times, because at each point there is a 1 in 500 chance we might pick the correct amino out of the hat, this assuming that all of the corrrect aminos are present in the hat at all times).

If we find that the probability is such that the probalistic resources (number of repeats, amino acid molecules, and time available) that we have are exhausted and yet somehow we have pulled the correct sequence from the hat, what should this tell us?

What if this same event repeated a few thousand times in a row (as might be required to build a basic functionally coherent replicator)

Me? I would say that somebody had been monkeying with the hat, rigging the game somehow. A designer of some sort.

You? You would say that my suggestion is silly and that it is completely unremarkable for such improbability to be overcome repeatably over millions of years. Besides, you might say, there must surely be some law at work that magically overcomes the laws of probability and that one must just have faith that one day Scientism will discover this law and then there will be no need to think about somebody who might be playing a game we don't like.

Why would I want a string of 50 amino acids in an exact orders?

Strings of amino acids form proteins that perform functions. We don't need an exact string. If I have a protein that sorta does what I want, and the code for that protein reproduces with variations, and there is a selection process in place, then with time those proteins can get closer to one of the millions of combinations that do exactly what I want.

 

[xianghua]

If mammals evolved twice identically we would be well on the road to a falsification of TOE.

no. it will just mean that mammal evolved twice. simple as that.

 

[Larniavc]

no. it will just mean that mammal evolved twice. simple as that.

In direct contradiction to ToE.

Check and Mate.

 

[xianghua]

In direct contradiction to ToE.

how exactly?

 

[Anguspure]

I'll get to this post more thoroughly when I get to my computer....but to start, are you aware that "impossibly low probability" is an oxymoron for any non-zero probability? 0 is the ONLY impossibly low probability. 1 in 10 to the Google power is not even impossibly low.

So when you ask if I acknowledge that an event requires a reasonable possibility in order for it to occur, I ABSOLUTELY do not concur...and I gave you an example...your "impossibly low probability" is shown to be possibly fulfilled, literally, every second of every day by events around the world.

And that, in and of itself, defeats the argument that one must CONCLUDE design based solely on improbability of nature.

But it's much worse than that for you, as I'll explain when I get online, and show how you are misapplying the math.

Nevertheless it is true that the presence of design is the best explanation for the appearance of design in a highly functionally coherent system where the probability of accidental invention is extremely low.
The world that assumes that this is not true is teaching kids some very dumb thinking and the wonders why academia is taking a dive in the west.
Everytime we say that cars "evolve", or the like, we are displaying utter contempt for the intelligent men behind the careful development of design, pandering to fools who hate the designer so much that they can't even bring themselves to acknowledge the designer when he is standing in front of them.

 

[Speedwell]

Nevertheless it is true that the presence of design is the best explanation for the appearance of design in a highly functionally coherent system where the probability of accidental invention is extremely low.
The world that assumes that this is not true is teaching kids some very dumb thinking and the wonders why academia is taking a dive in the west.
Everytime we say that cars "evolve", or the like, we are displaying utter contempt for the intelligent men behind the careful development of design, pandering to fools who hate the designer so much that they can't even bring themselves to acknowledge the designer when he is standing in front of them.

Whe we say that cars or other inanimate man-made objects "evolve" we are most definitely not asserting that they evolve biologically by variation and natural selection, nor are we denigrating the role of the human designer.

 

[Anguspure]

In fact, you can even perform an "impossibly low probability" event, on purpose, right now.

Step 1: shuffle a deck of standard playing cards.

Step 2: deal all 52 cards face up, in order drawn, on the table.

That's all the steps required. Well done.

Good analogy but a very poor grasp of what is happening.

The order of the cards I have dealt according to your instruction displays no functional coherence. It is inconsequential.

Of course we can see that highly unlikely, one off events happen all of the time. But these events have no consequence for anything, except that they serve to remind us how rare it is that the events that do have consequence occur by accident.

The events we are looking for in biogenesis are those events that give us some precisely functional proteins that come together in ecactly the right way to create a succesfully self replicating organism. We are not interested in random collections of "organic" compounds, as interesting and rare as these collections might be to some, because these don't do anything biological, and we are only interested in the precise chains folded in the correct way so as to be functional in a self replicating organism.

Now what we are going to do is shuffle the pack of cards again, randomly add a few from another deck, maybe remove a few as well. This is more in keeping with the realities of the prebiotic soup kitchen although, of course, vastly simplified.

This time we're going to deal a precise sequence just as for a small peptide.

We're only going deal 13 of them and we are going to end up with only the suit of Spades dealt in exact order from Ace to King.

To add a bit more authenticity we could expect that when they are dealt onto the table, the cards will (in the correct order still) form a shape that could be used to connect logically to the next sequence that will be the suit of Hearts backwards down to the 6 of hearts, followed by the 3 of Spades and then diamonds starting from the Ace up to the 4. But one thing at a time.

So it didn't work the first time I tried, how long would it take for me to have a reasonable chance of success? Do you think I would be foolish to sit all day dealing cards in the hope that I might get it?
What about for my lifetime, or 15 billion years for that matter?

 

[Anguspure]

Whe we say that cars or other inanimate man-made objects "evolve" we are most definitely not asserting that they evolve biologically by variation and natural selection, nor are we denigrating the role of the human designer.

So why not use the word designed? Evolution is a mindless process. I would be insulted to have my work regarded as a mindless development of random events.

 

[bhsmte]

So why not use the word designed? Evolution is a mindless process. I would be insulted to have my work regarded as a mindless development of random events.

Who said evolution is someone's work?

 

[doubtingmerle]

The events we are looking for in biogenesis are those events that give us some precisely functional proteins that come together in ecactly the right way to create a succesfully self replicating organism.

We are?

The last I heard we were looking for sets of molecules that tend to catalyze themselves. We are expecting some such sets may eventually include features to give them advantages over other such sets, and this would eventually lead to life.

 

[Speedwell]

So why not use the word designed? Evolution is a mindless process. I would be insulted to have my work regarded as a mindless development of random events.

You wouldn't be insulted of you really understood the elegance of variation and selection producing functional complexity.

 

[Anguspure]

Who said evolution is someone's work?

Evolution is a mindless process and not someone's work.
When we say that something that has be designed has evolved we are saying that the thing came into being through a mindless process.
A process of development that involves intelligence is called "design".
Many authors regularly talk about the evolution of this or that when clearly these things have been arrived at tbrough a design process.
Biologists are no different and are more than happy to thieve from design language and concepts while describing biology but the deny the Designer.

 

[Anguspure]

You wouldn't be insulted of you really understood the elegance of variation and selection producing functional complexity.

I do recognise the handy work of the Gardener when I see it and you are right the elegance and innovation and care taken to produce is something beautiful to behold.
How wonderful are His works!

 

[Anguspure]

We are?

The last I heard we were looking for sets of molecules that tend to catalyze themselves. We are expecting some such sets may eventually include features to give them advantages over other such sets, and this would eventually lead to life.

One step at a time, you are jumping the gun again. First we must come to a system that can produce a population of replicated systems.

"Eventually include features...give them advantages" is the language of development. At the stage we are talking about we have not even invented anything to develop yet.

Still dealing the cards and still no joy but I will try and retain your eternal optimism.

 

[doubtingmerle]

One step at a time, you are jumping the gun again. First we must come to a system that can produce a population of replicated systems.

Why must that be first?

Why can't sets of molecules that tend to catalyze themselves be first?

"Eventually include features...give them advantages" is the language of development.

True. And sets of molecules that tend to catalyze themselves could develop into more advanced sets.

 

[dmmesdale]

Who said evolution is someone's work?

Certainly not atheists. They believe the human brain is the result of totally nondirected processes, no intelligent intervention allowed.
Human Brain Facts about Parts etc - HumanBrainFacts.org
What a miraculous thing human brain is! It is one of the most powerful and marvelous creations of the Nature. It is known to have countless mysteries, the majority of which are still undiscovered and least understood. Your brain is a highly complex network of billions of neurons that render it the ability to think, feel, process information and produce responses. The question “What makes brain to initiate and accomplish the process of thinking” has not yet been answered properly. There are also a number of other related questions to which the researchers are trying to provide convincing answers. It has recently been discovered that, contrary to the earlier assumption, brain is not hardwired and can be changed or trained according to one’s will!

 

[pitabread]

Biologists are no different and are more than happy to thieve from design language and concepts while describing biology but the deny the Designer.

Not a particularly honest assessment, given there are a lot of biologists that are also theists. Those are not mutually exclusive positions.