Unrealized Genomes as the Ultimate Falsification of the Theory of Evolution

[Nithavela]

Write an article for peer-review. If you cant, your views dont matter.

If that is true, why are people even posting in this forum?

 

[sfs]

You are challenging nothing, because by keeping 1615 bases fixed I am simply determining the number of functional sequences (10^1,458), and not the odds of hiting a single, unique sequence of DNA. My calculation then consists of determining the ratio of functional to non-funacional sequences, and comparing it to the maximal computational capacity of Earth and the entire observable universe.

Sigh. You're calculating the fraction of sequences that are functional in your model. 4^2423 sequences are functional out of 4^4038 total sequences. That's 1 out of 4^1615 (regardless of whether you calculate it as the fraction that are functional or the ratio of functional to non-functional, within rounding error). That's what I said.

You still have not justified your assumption that any specific DNA sequence is required. I don't see a lot of point to continuing this conversation. You've made up a number that does not reflect real biology. Whether you care about that or not is up to you.

I don't know about your knowledge of genetics but the ratio of functional to non-functional sequences has nothing to do with genetics. It simply expresses the fact that some sequences code and some don't code for a particular phenotype.

That's all within the purview of genetics.

 

[pitabread]

You've made up a number that does not reflect real biology.

I think they teach this in Creationist Probability Calculation 101.

 

[VirOptimus]

If that is true, why are people even posting in this forum?

When they have views that go against established science? Beats me, its just foolish.

 

[loveofourlord]

Unrealized Genomes as the Ultimate Falsification of the Theory of Evolution

The linked article examines the fundamental assumption behind the theory of evolution by which, just because each new organism has subtly different genome than its parents, this will eventually lead to genomes with information for previously nonexistent, functional and niche occupying structures, such as organs. For that purpose, first it compares two libraries. One library contains ‘realized genomes’ — i.e. all genomes that could have been formed during the entire history of life on Earth. Another library contains ‘unrealized genomes’ — i.e. all possible genomes that a genome of a certain size allows, reduced by the number of realized genomes. Finally, it calculates the waiting time required for finding the genome with information for a single and super primitive bio-structure and it concludes that it would take 10^871 years for that to happen.

P.S. I tried to discuss this here, but that forum is corrupted with atheist fundamentalists who only hide behind science, but would in no way allow any scientific challenges to the evolution theory.

This utterly fails in one thing, that seems to presume that this was the only path evolution could take, if any of those other unrealized genomes were taken we would have taken a different path. Evolution doesn't have a end goal, or a path, plus we just have to look at nature to see many of those primative organs exist out there now in animals, that descend from our ancestors.

 

[Contradiction]

Sigh. You're calculating the fraction of sequences that are functional in your model. 4^2423 sequences are functional out of 4^4038 total sequences. That's 1 out of 4^1615 (regardless of whether you calculate it as the fraction that are functional or the ratio of functional to non-functional, within rounding error). That's what I said.

You still have not justified your assumption that any specific DNA sequence is required. I don't see a lot of point to continuing this conversation. You've made up a number that does not reflect real biology. Whether you care about that or not is up to you.

That's all within the purview of genetics.

So, you are basically just repeating your empty accusations about the mistakes and tossing around general statements without providing any concrete numbers, without providing any correct calculations about the ratio, without providing numbers that reflect real biology. In short, without actually demonstrating that my calculations are wrong. Well, you can keep doing this but you can't challenge anything in the article in that way.

I am simply saying that given some functional sequence, for e.g. "insect", we must fix some positions to keep meaning of the word. Because this sequence — "kxrsir" is useless in expressing the concept of a small arthropod animal. If we fix the first two and the last two positions - "in..ct", then we still know what is meant by a word. Then you toss this general statement in: you still have not justified your assumption that "in..ct" is required. Well let's test your remark by changing characters from specific to non-specific: "hp..xy". Now, does something like that expresses the concept of a small arthropod animal? Obviously not. So, of course that a part of a sequence must be specific. If some sequences are non-functional or meaningless, then by definition we need specific ones to have function or meaning.

So, you are challenging nothing but just trolling the discussion.

 

[Ophiolite]

So, you are basically just repeating your empty accusations about the mistakes and tossing around general statements without providing any concrete numbers, without providing any correct calculations about the ratio, without providing numbers that reflect real biology. In short, without actually demonstrating that my calculations are wrong. Well, you can keep doing this but you can't challenge anything in the article in that way.

I am simply saying that given some functional sequence, for e.g. "insect", we must fix some positions to keep meaning of the word. Because this sequence — "kxrsir" is useless in expressing the concept of a small arthropod animal. If we fix the first two and the last two positions - "in..ct", then we still know what is meant by a word. Then you toss this general statement in: you still have not justified your assumption that "in..ct" is required. Well let's test your remark by changing characters from specific to non-specific: "hp..xy". Now, does something like that expresses the concept of a small arthropod animal? Obviously not. So, of course that a part of a sequence must be specific. If some sequences are non-functional or meaningless, then by definition we need specific ones to have function or meaning.

So, you are challenging nothing but just trolling the discussion.

1. I am at a loss to determine what is preventing you from seeing the logic and relevance of the argument from sfs and others. The cogency of your posts and the appearance of at least a smattering of education suggest you are not intellectually challenged, so that cannot be the reason.

It would be impertinent of me to suggest you have personal issues that require you to "set yourself against the world", so we'd best gloss over that possibility.

Given your declared religion the most likely explanation is that your intense faith has blinded you to reality. I can respect your faith, but not the misguided consequences that follow from it.

Alternatively, your repeated requests that members adress the "real biology" when they are doing exactly that and doing so repeatedly, suggests that you may be the troll.

2. Perhaps if you climbed down from your high horse long enough to think carefully about the counter arguments you have been presented with you might get somewhere. Simply accosting and accusing those who seek a dialogue with you is pointless.

3. I think this has been asked before, but I have seen no satisfactory reply from you: what makes you think that all possible genomes are equally likely?

 

[Contradiction]

1. I am at a loss to determine what is preventing you from seeing the logic and relevance of the argument from sfs and others. The cogency of your posts and the appearance of at least a smattering of education suggest you are not intellectually challenged, so that cannot be the reason.

It would be impertinent of me to suggest you have personal issues that require you to "set yourself against the world", so we'd best gloss over that possibility.

Given your declared religion the most likely explanation is that your intense faith has blinded you to reality. I can respect your faith, but not the misguided consequences that follow from it.

Alternatively, your repeated requests that members adress the "real biology" when they are doing exactly that and doing so repeatedly, suggests that you may be the troll.

2. Perhaps if you climbed down from your high horse long enough to think carefully about the counter arguments you have been presented with you might get somewhere. Simply accosting and accusing those who seek a dialogue with you is pointless.

3. I think this has been asked before, but I have seen no satisfactory reply from you: what makes you think that all possible genomes are equally likely?

So instead of addressing the topic at hand you wrote all this only to attack my character and motives. No concrete numbers, no correct calculations, no real biology, just ad hominem. Is that all you can offer?

 

[Contradiction]

3. I think this has been asked before, but I have seen no satisfactory reply from you: what makes you think that all possible genomes are equally likely?

A loaded question or complex question fallacy is a question that contains a controversial or unjustified assumption (e.g., a presumption of guilt).

Aside from being an informal fallacy depending on usage, such questions may be used as a rhetorical tool: the question attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the questioner's agenda. The traditional example is the question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Whether the respondent answers yes or no, he will admit to having a wife and having beaten her at some time in the past.

1. I never said, neither here nor in the article that "all possible genomes are equally likely".
2. Likelihood of a genome has absolutely and literally nothing to do with my arguments.

So, you are just a classical troll.

 

[Ophiolite]

So instead of addressing the topic at hand you wrote all this only to attack my character and motives. No concrete numbers, no correct calculations, no real biology, just ad hominem. Is that all you can offer?

It is telling that you consider my remarks an attack. I did not attack either your character or motives. I questioned your motives, explicitly suggesting possible explanations for them and implicitly asking you to clarify why you were ignoring "the concrete numbers" provided by others, "the correct calculations" provided by others and "the real biology" provided by others.

Your motives are pertinent to the discussion, since your persistence refusal to recognise merit in valid questions and objections calls into question the value of your arguments. Consequently, questioning those motives (not attacking them) is justifiable and thus my remarks do not constitute an ad hominem.

Is that all you can offer?

Obviously not, since I then present two further points. So why ask?

A loaded question or complex question fallacy is a question that contains a controversial or unjustified assumption (e.g., a presumption of guilt).

Aside from being an informal fallacy depending on usage, such questions may be used as a rhetorical tool: the question attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the questioner's agenda. The traditional example is the question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Whether the respondent answers yes or no, he will admit to having a wife and having beaten her at some time in the past.

1. I never said, neither here nor in the article that "all possible genomes are equally likely".
2. Likelihood of a genome has absolutely and literally nothing to do with my arguments.

So, you are just a classical troll.

"Unjustified assumption"? Don't blame me for the lack of clarity of your writing. Your calculations are valid if and only if "all possible genomes are equally likely".

So, let us remove the danger of assumptions. Do you or do you not think all genomes are equally likely? (Please note if you choose not to answer that question clearly and definitively you are identifying yourself as the troll.) Based upon your response I shall continue with my intended refutation.

 

[Contradiction]

It is telling that you consider my remarks an attack. I did not attack either your character or motives. I questioned your motives, explicitly suggesting possible explanations for them and implicitly asking you to clarify why you were ignoring "the concrete numbers" provided by others, "the correct calculations" provided by others and "the real biology" provided by others.

Your motives are pertinent to the discussion, since your persistence refusal to recognise merit in valid questions and objections calls into question the value of your arguments. Consequently, questioning those motives (not attacking them) is justifiable and thus my remarks do not constitute an ad hominem.

Obviously not, since I then present two further points. So why ask?

"Unjustified assumption"? Don't blame me for the lack of clarity of your writing. Your calculations are valid if and only if "all possible genomes are equally likely".

So, let us remove the danger of assumptions. Do you or do you not think all genomes are equally likely? (Please note if you choose not to answer that question clearly and definitively you are identifying yourself as the troll.) Based upon your response I shall continue with my intended refutation.

This words of yours are typical troll response, and here is why:

1. There were no such things as "the concrete numbers", "the correct calculations" or "the real biology" provided by others to challenge my article. Majority of the responders simply used dirty debate tactics, like you. So you are basically inventing things, which makes you an intellectually dishonest person.

2. But despite that, I addressed nearly all these responses.

3. My motives are irrelevant to the topic at hand.

4. Saying something doesn't make it so. You've said that" my calculations are valid if and only if "all possible genomes are equally likely". Well I got news for you: asserting something without explanation or demonstration is as an empty assertion. You have to explain and demonstrate why and how this invalidates my calculations.

Regarding your question: "Do you or do you not think all genomes are equally likely?"

Of course that all genomes are NOT equally likely. The likelihood of forming a genome with information for previously nonexistent structure is not equal to the likelihood of forming a different genome. Every reproduction cycle will result in different genome. So, what is your point?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

This utterly fails in one thing, that seems to presume that this was the only path evolution could take, if any of those other unrealized genomes were taken we would have taken a different path. Evolution doesn't have a end goal, or a path, plus we just have to look at nature to see many of those primative organs exist out there now in animals, that descend from our ancestors.

Yes, quite. One of the basic errors it makes is ignoring that evolution is cumulative, adapting existing structures, and that, at each stage, a wide variety of adaptive modifications may be possible, depending on the selection pressures; consequently 'new' organs are not developed de-novo, but by stepwise modification.

It is indeed a version of the 'tornado in a junkyard' argument.

There is a hint that this may be deliberate in that it uses a quote about insect evolution from the Bionity encyclopedia, which, taken out of context, gives the impression of de-novo wing development; however, the previous paragraph in the encyclopedia is devoted to considering the structures which may have been adapted to form wings (and suggests that wing evolution seems delayed compared to the evolution of other organs from these structures in other species).

 

[loveofourlord]

Yes, quite. One of the basic errors it makes is ignoring that evolution is cumulative, adapting existing structures, and that, at each stage, a wide variety of adaptive modifications may be possible, depending on the selection pressures; consequently 'new' organs are not developed de-novo, but by stepwise modification.

It is indeed a version of the 'tornado in a junkyard' argument.

There is a hint that this may be deliberate in that it uses a quote about insect evolution from the Bionity encyclopedia, which, taken out of context, gives the impression of de-novo wing development; however, the previous paragraph in the encyclopedia is devoted to considering the structures which may have been adapted to form wings (and suggests that wing evolution seems delayed compared to the evolution of other organs from these structures in other species).

Also two ecoli experiments kinda disprove the whole one path method or chances of it happening twice.

One experiment where they let e-coli evolve in batches, and one got a improved eating of a material they could but not very well, when they went back they found the point where the first step had evolverd to make it happen, had that batch grow a second time and it formed again, showing that yes certain things can evolve multiple times.

The second one was where they broke the e-coli's ability to use their flegellum, and provided enough food for it but a second food source, and it was able to repair it's flegellum using a method different then the original method. Showing that there is more then one path to get the same result.

 

[Contradiction]

Yes, quite. One of the basic errors it makes is ignoring that evolution is cumulative, adapting existing structures, and that, at each stage, a wide variety of adaptive modifications may be possible, depending on the selection pressures; consequently 'new' organs are not developed de-novo, but by stepwise modification.

It is indeed a version of the 'tornado in a junkyard' argument.

There is a hint that this may be deliberate in that it uses a quote about insect evolution from the Bionity encyclopedia, which, taken out of context, gives the impression of de-novo wing development; however, the previous paragraph in the encyclopedia is devoted to considering the structures which may have been adapted to form wings (and suggests that wing evolution seems delayed compared to the evolution of other organs from these structures in other species).

There is no such thing as "existing structure" in the context of evolution. There is only a genome, and random changes to it. This idea of cumulative evolution that adapts existing structures is a childish view of reality that attributes the faculty of intelligence to evolution. Mutations are random, they don't model existing structures like intelligent sculptors do. You people live in a fantasy world.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

The second one was where they broke the e-coli's ability to use their flegellum, and provided enough food for it but a second food source, and it was able to repair it's flegellum using a method different then the original method. Showing that there is more then one path to get the same result.

Good example - although describing the evolution of a trait in terms of agency ("it was able to repair its flagellum") could be misleading to those who are unfamiliar with how evolution works...

 

[pitabread]

In short, without actually demonstrating that my calculations are wrong.

It's not so much that the calculation is wrong as rather that the calculation is meaningless. If you are trying to calculate the probability of of a functional whatever, to have meaningful calculation you need the total probability space of viable outcomes. That information does not exist.

So it's not about the math; it's the application.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

There is no such thing as "existing structure" in the context of evolution. There is only a genome, and random changes to it. This idea of cumulative evolution that adapts existing structures is a childish view of reality that attributes the faculty of intelligence to evolution. Mutations are random, they don't model existing structures like intelligent sculptors do. You people live in a fantasy world.

Whether the random changes to the genome are fixed in the population depends on natural selection acting on the phenotype coded by that genotype, which very definitely includes existing structures.

Juvenile insults don't add to the credibility of your argument or you.

 

[Speedwell]

There is no such thing as "existing structure" in the context of evolution.

Of course there is. Each evolutionary change is a change from what existed previously.

There is only a genome, and random changes to it. This idea of cumulative evolution that adapts existing structures is a childish view of reality that attributes the faculty of intelligence to evolution.

False. No such faculty is attributed to evolution. It is not necessary to do so.

Mutations are random, they don't model existing structures like intelligent sculptors do.

Why would anyone expect them to?

 

[Contradiction]

Whether the random changes to the genome are fixed in the population depends on natural selection acting on the phenotype coded by that genotype, which very definitely includes existing structures.

Juvenile insults don't add to the credibility of your argument or you.

I am not insulting, your arguments and assumptions are really childish. Do you even know what "the existing structure" in the context of a genome is? It is a specific place in the genome. Do you know, given the observed mutation rate, how long does it take for a mutation to even hit this specific place once, let alone to add additional code to it and then millions upon millions of changes to turn it into something new and functional. Not to mention that regulatory and controlling code must also change - which is also located in a specific place in the genome. You people really have a childish view of reality and you really live in a fantasy world. You think that you can just invoke the magic wand of natural selection and ... voila! Problem solved.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Of course there is. Each evolutionary change is a change from what existed previously. False. No such faculty is attributed to evolution. It is not necessary to do so. Why would anyone expect them to?

Quite; unless such straw-man criticisms are made from ignorance, which the OP insists is not the case, what could be the explanation for them?