A debate about debates
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Wednesday, November 1, 2006 22:13
VIEWED: 12983
PAGE 8 of 17
Kaneman- Evolution has been simulated on computer many times over. Starting with a very simple code with only a few instructions (eat bits and multiply) with RANDOM code changes tossed in to simulate mutations, entire ecologies - primary producers, parasites, predators, symbiots, scavengers/ recyclers - have emerged. In other words: macroevolution occurred. I suggest you give up on the whole "macroevolution couldn't occur because of statistics" approach because it HAS been demonstrated mathematically than it can and does occur.
Now, if you're like me you're thinking- AHA! The program was "seeded" with a bit of self-replicating code. In "real life" where did this bit of code come from? THe answer is- I don't know. I'm not enough of a biologist to lay out a credible starting point. The question surely occupies a fair number of Noble-prize caliber biologists. But I'm enough of a chemist to know that self-replication occurs in something as simple as crystal formation, prion replication, and nanotechnology. It doesn't even need to be "alive" to eat, self replicate, and seed other areas.
I think the problem is that you can't imagine 4 billion years. Four billion years is a f*ck of a long time for chemicals to interact. Also, when you say "statistics" let us know what branch or study of "statistics" it is that "proves" that life couldn't have evolved by chance.
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SO anyway- where ARE those cat/dog/human fossils?
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science is not really my field, so i stay away from the specifics of the evolution debate as best i can, but mainly because its not totally relevant to me. it doesnt lessen my appreciation, or curiosity, or understanding of how certain mechanisms work, i just 'believe' they were designed that way. i believe that the evolutions of species does occur, and i can imagine the universe came about in a similar process. the way i like to look at it is that its possible that the complexities of the physical universe may be governed by a higher 'brain' in another plane or dimension or something; and that this brain is God. i know there are some pretty intelligent astrophysicists and the like- who leave open the 'God' factor, so its not quite a dead concept, but maybe taking on a different context.
i realise that i am acting on 'faith' by favoring a concept that has no direct evidence, which i am not disputing(guilty as charged); i do think its an option though, and it allows me to leave open, as a wild card, the possibility that what we've alleged to be ancient mythology, may actually once have had some factual basis in reality. i know thats a leap for some, im not asking anyone to accept it, but it does feel relevant to me in the real world, given the progression of modern mans spiritual and religious archetypes and behavior; i think a lot has been covered up and removed from the public domain by the Vatican and other secret societies over time that illude to this, whether it literally happened or not.
i dont want to rule out that we could all be right, so thats where im at( and also why im prone to conspiracy theory.. )
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Also, when you say "statistics" let us know what branch or study of "statistics" it is that "proves" that life couldn't have evolved by chance.
Hi.
I can't speak for Kaneman, but there are several pages of material which deals with the "statistics" of evolution from Heeren's Show Me God (to which I've previously referred elsewhere). Naturally, I cannot quote them all here, but I will quote a brief segment from just one of the places where Heeren addresses this.As stated previously, in another thread, I recommend Heeren's book if you want a more complete picture (400 pages).
The following passage is from Heeren's "Show Me God" (pp 61-62)
Theorists are at a loss to explain how, even in a rich prebiotic soup filled with organic compounds, a sequence that creates the information necessary for life can be produced by any means where intelligence is not already involved. Using information theory, astrophysicist Edward Argyle calculated the probability that a simple organism arose on the early Earth by chance. Information theory measures information in "bits". A combination lock, for example, may contain 20 bits of information, representing about a million possible combinations.
Argyle concluded: "It would seem impossible for the prebiotic Earth to have generated more than about 200 bits of information, an amount that falls short of the 6 billion bits in E.coli [a species of bacteria] by a factor of 30,000."**
**When Argyle says that E.coli has an information content of 6 million bits, this means that it would require 10 to the 1,800,000th power of different possible cases or states for this to occur. We can get some sense of this number when we realize that scientists believe there to be 10 to the 80th power subatomic particles in the entire visible universe.
He also found that when he expanded the probability to include our entire galaxy (and assumed a billion earth-like planets), this combination of assumed pre-biotic soups still could not produce anything close to the amount of information in a simple virus.
(NASA astronomer) Michael Hart's calculations also demonstrate the difficulties in assuming abiogenesis as a common process. He wrote:
"The simplest known organism which is capable of independent existence includes about 100 different genes. For each of the 100 different specific genes to be formed spontaneously (in 10 billion years) the probability is (10 to the 30th power) to the 100th power = 10 to the 3,000th power. For them to be formed at the same time, and in close proximity, the probability is very much lower."
The result is that, for anyone who believes that the development of life is a truly random process, it appears unlikely, not only that life exists anywhere else in the universe at this moment, but that it will never ever exist anywhere else -- unless we are the ones who do the colonizing.
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I think what these scientists may be failing to account for is that once there is even a small piece of self-replicating protein it will, by nature of being more efficient than a random process, simply overtake all of the random reactions that are occuring. And any cahnges that result in being more efficient will overtake the ones that are less efficient, and so on. The major flaw in their appraoch is that they seem to be applying "random chance" math to a process that is self-replicating and self-honing.
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Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I think what these scientists may be failing to account for is that once there is even a small piece of self-replicating protein it will, by nature of being more efficient than a random process, simply overtake all of the random reactions that are occuring. And any cahnges that result in being more efficient will overtake the ones that are less efficient, and so on. The major flaw in their appraoch is that they seem to be applying "random chance" math to a process that is self-replicating and self-honing.
I don't know. I'm neither a biologist nor a mathematician.
But, from what I can understand of what I've read on the subject, for something to become "self-replicating" in the first place, it needs to have a basic "code" (enabling it to be so), which by its very nature, would have to be arrived at either by a) chance (which, according to the above quotation, along with several other similar examples throughout Heeren's work, seems to lie beyond the scope of mathematical probability), or by b) design.But, as I said, I'm neither a biologist nor a mathematician, so don't take my word for it. Check out the book. There's a lot more to it than the passage from which I've quoted. Whether or not you'll agree or disagree with its premises, I can't say. But, without reading all of it (in context), neither can anyone else.
I don't have the expertise to vouch for the scientific merit of the book, and they can easily have pulled the wool over my eyes. However, as I attempted to point out in the other thread -- there are those with far more credentials than any of us in here, who have endorsed the book. So, on that merit alone, it at least justifies a basic reading by anyone with an interest in the subject, one way or the other.
Thank you for the civil reply, btw.
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Antimason,
Or we all could be wrong. You're a smart guy, you should study this stuff. What's going on underneath all of the accepted science is truly bizarre. I haven't been led to the conclusion that there is one operational consciouness guiding it, but it's really far stranger than our society seems to think. We have an accepted science which worships occums razor, and so the version of events we learn is probably inaccurate in that it's oversimplified. I'm fairly sure that natural selection by random mutation, pretty much accepted, is not actually what's going on here. But it's a lot closer to whats going on than creationism. Which is all why I say, I'd be happy to have a debate *about* evolution.
But here's a tip to take with you, if you choose to take this journey. As with all things in life, I always say, whether religious or scientific, political or personal, always check you're baggage at the door. set aside your preconceptions of what you want to find, and try to find what's really there. It's already damn near impossible without your own predisposition getting in the way.
I certainly have the feeling that what's really going on is far stranger than either standard point of view.
Myself I tend to limit what I believe in to the bones of what *has* to be true, covered with the flesh of what is closest to the truth, with the skin of what is most probably true of the remaining evidence. I tend to eschew that which does not *need* to be true, until the evidence supports it, or the need is mandated by the other facts.
Evolution *must* be true, in order for logic itself to make sense, how it happened and why is, sure, still up to debate. As a scientific debate, the one who falls closest to the truth, where ever that may be, not where you would like it to be, but where it turns out to be, is bound to be the winner.
The existance of a designer, for me, don't have to be true. The nature of existence doesn't mandate it. Doesn't mean it's false, but I can't believe in something which might blind me to other truths if I have no necessity for it.
Cartoon,
This is pretty well understood, I laid out what I thought was the winning argument a couple of posts ago. An early pro-biotic soup would not create complex life forms, it would create simple self replicating molecules, and "sticky" compounds, which would enhance future interact. A soup made of these, would make a more advanced form, and so on until it evolved into something we would recognize as 'life.' Each generation would like ly consume the generation before it, and only oddities would remain. It pretty much reflects, imho, what we see. Being the only logical explanation with any statistical possibility of success, I feel pretty sure that's a decent approximation of what happened.
It doesn't need a code to replicate. Prions replicate without a code, they're the sort of thing which would fit the pattern of what we're talking about here.
But all of this misses a key logical fallacy in the argument: The creation science crowd is arriving at a conclusion that they were predisposed to arrive at, which almost completely invalidates anything they say. If someone sets out with the preconception that black people are dumber than white people, and set forth to prove this, any evidence presented outside of the accepted common evidence, and any conjecture drawn, will be entirely suspect. No one will be surprised when they arrive at the conclusion, because it will be the whole point of doing the study, to essentially rationalize a position they already had.
At best, the so called science of creationism is a paradigm of wishful thinking, and at worse, it's a deliberately malicious and divisive rhetorical trick with the probably goal of separating christians from the rest of society.
Finally, I think it's safe to say that you will never fing the smoking gun which proves evolution wrong on a scientific basis. I suspect Antimason is on a better path with the idea of evolution covers the how, but not the why.
It's been an interesting battle royale
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It took me a while to get to this thread.
This is just a 'me too' post.
There are MANY examples of self-replicating and self-assembling chemicals. And once they start to assemble/ replicate they use up raw materials which drives the reactions that create the raw materials to create even more raw materials (drives the chemical equilibrium forward).
Once that happens it takes over a random system.
One could say that life might even be inevitable, given the right conditions and enough time.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rue:
One could say that life might even be inevitable, given the right conditions and enough time.
Exactly!
I even would take the radical position that scientific data has sometimes been altered to disguise this fact. When I was studying the formation of the solar system I could find essentially zero concrete evidence to support the idea that the habitable surface of the earth was 4.6 billion years old, and the assumption had been thrown into every text to support the equally common conclusion that "life is an amazingly unlikely event." This, in turn, supported the conclusion "earth is unique" and "humans, as earth's dominant species, are unique" and "uniquely superior" which enforces, underhandedly, the idea "chosen by god, enacted by god, because it's either that or a huge coincidence, and you don't believe in huge coincidences, right?"
Furthermore, when I nitpick the big bang, it's that I see these common elements recur in science, which all share the common unscientific element that they seek to find a particular answer. ie. big bang = hand of god. The fundemental truth is going to be the one that is there even if your not trying to find it.
My own dabbling led me to this very conclusion, life is inevitable, given the right conditions and enough time.
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
My own dabbling led me to this very conclusion, life is inevitable, given the right conditions and enough time.
Me three. I would even argue that we're not the only planet in the universe(s) with life, and there are at least a few more (granted, not any real close to us, although it's a possibility).
But, that's just me, and my tangent thought.
::shrugs::
---
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Me four!
Quote:Science is (pardon the word) bedeviled with assumptions that are deeply embedded in world view. And the more fundamental the assumptions are, the harder they are to root out. So European biologists, deeply steeped in capitalism, hierarchy, and paternalism looked at the whole animal kingdom as one giant struggle for male dominance. Humans, thinking that they are somehow supremely evolved, can't imagine that we MIGHT just be a tool of viral DNA. Cosmologists may be overlooking a much simpler answer in favor of the big bang.
Furthermore, when I nitpick the big bang, it's that I see these common elements recur in science, which all share the common unscientific element that they seek to find a particular answer. ie. big bang = hand of god. The fundamental truth is going to be the one that is there even if your not trying to find it.
That's why it try to question assumptions rather deeply, because they can really distort a view of reality.
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Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.
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