Is Evolution Intellectually Viable?

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Originally posted by Ahmad:
when not even a single chance-formed protein can exist

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And your evidence for this statement is what?------------------
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Originally posted by Percipient:
Your question includes a Creationist characterization of abiogenesis and evolution. Naturally any evolutionist would reply that it doesn't sound logical or reasonable, but only because these aren't the views of science on these topics.

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--Percy

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ummmmm...... where is message #2?------------------
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Originally posted by nos482:

Can anyone tell me the fallacy he is using here?

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Well.....

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Originally posted by Ahmad:
Does it sound logical or reasonable

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This could be construed as loading the question as phrasing like this in English subtly imply the answer.It could also borders on being an appeal to emotion when coupled with the above gentle inferences, since no one wants to be illogical or unreasonable.

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(when not even a single chance-formed protein can exist)

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assuming the consequent: ie, introducing the conclusion as one of the premises. [quote][b]that millions of such proteins combined in an order to produce the cell of a living thing;[/quote][/b]argument from incredulity -- kinda-of a theme for the post really.

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and that billions of cells managed to form

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Straw man. The word managed implies a kind of will and/or intent.

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and then came together by chance to produce living things;

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Oversimplification of the process. Chance is involved but there are MANY other factors as well, which make the process not as chancie as creationists like to think.

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and that from them generated fish; and that those that passed to land turned into reptiles, birds, and that this is how all the millions of different species (including us) on earth were formed?

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More misrepresentation.------------------
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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
^ We are claiming the genomes arrived all completed. They were not the same as they are now but they were complete and working (better). A genome for each kind.

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If this were the case, it would be damned obvious in the data. Despite your assertions, you have yet to make a tenable case.

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
"When I speak of evolution I mean all parts of it, not just the narrow definition creationists try to pin on it."
--Evolution is as I said it is above. This is not the 'narrow definition creationists try to pin on it' but the definition included in my available biology text-books.

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"Molecules to man" is not the ToE. Evolution deals with the adaptations of populations to their environments. This excludes the 'molecules' part, which is dealt with by those studying abiogenesis. TC is correct, though the fuzzy line between the two is disconcerting. Funny, it is much more comon for creationists to want to mix the two fields.------------------
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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
--While this is also correct, the differentiation nos & me are tumbling over was evolution vs. the theory of evolution (which in its semantic self would not be adequate, though the use of the wording 'theory of evolution' has come to be known as evolution over geologic time.) 'evolution' simply implies change over time, or in biology a change in allele frequencies over time. the word used singularly does not have a given period of time by which phylogenies may be expanded by inherited mutation.

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hmmm.... back in post #17 Nos said some things that made me believe that 'molecules to man' was the topic. Sorry... I'll shut-up now.------------------
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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Have you read the Science paper?

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No. I haven't read it.

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The mosquito has thousands of genes not in the fly and not in anything else.

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I'm not sure why you are excited about this. Different critter, at least a few different genes.Thousands of genes eh? That is less than 1% of the mosquito's genome. Sorry TB, I don't feel the Earth shaking.

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The data fully supports the genome per kind idea.

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You don't have a genome-per-kind idea. You cannot tell us how to determine kinds-- you have failed miserably every time your've tried-- and until you can take that very simple step you cannot claim that anything supports it. You have no theory. If you have no theory it cannot be tested or supported or anything of the sort.

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You pick a genome and there are thousands of conserved housekeeping genes, and given the genomes we have so far, hundreds and thousands of kind-specific genes.

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Without knowing exactly what makes a 'kind' you cannot know if a gene is kind-specific.------------------
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ahmad:
"the spontaneous formation of a polypeptide of the size of the smallest known proteins seems beyond all probability."(W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Co., 1991, p. 304)[/b][/quote]Actually, I don't really care what 'seems' beyond all probability. This is nothing more than an argument from indredulity. [quote][b]Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry at New York University and a DNA expert, calculated the probability of the coincidental formation of the 2000 types of proteins found in a single bacteria (There are 200,000 different types of proteins in a human cell).[/QUOTE]This is a misuse of probability. It is like throwing a rock down a hill, recording every twitch, spin, and roll it makes on the way down, calculating the probablility of it taking that particular path and then concluding that it COULDN'T have taken the path it did because it is statistically 'impossible'------------------
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Originally posted by Ahmad:
Not incredulity but the Mathematical Theory of Probability.

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Probability calculations are not deterministic. You can have one hundred trillion to one against and it still happen.

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Your analogy of Probability is faulty and misleading.

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It wasn't an analogy of probability. It was an argument analogous to one made by many creationsist. You statements implied this argument.

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Do you assume that the rock could have been thrown a conscious thrower who will record this "twitch, spin, and roll"??

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Why is this relevant?

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You are jumping to conclusions.

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Such as... ? Thus far, you haven't pointed out any.

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Why would we statistically calculate the probability of the rock taking the particular path when the rock had actually taken the path and we observed it in situ??

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That is a very good question, yet that is exactly what creationists do when they argue that life could not have arisen without divine intervention. Think about it. We are standing at the bottom of the hill and have found the rock. We can't climb the hill but we can look up it with our eyes and with binoculars, radar, whatever. This is us standing in the present looking back through time via the geological record, DNA sequencing, whatever we can find. While we can't see every zig and zig the rock made, we can see where it hit the ground here and there. We can see where it broke a brandh off of a tree. That sort of thing. Scientists try to figure out what path the rock took. Creationsist look at the same data and calculate the chances of it making a three-quarter turn before hitting a pebble and bouncing seven inches to right, landing oriented a turn and half from its laundh orientation, then rolling two feet, spinning counterclockwise, and breaking a blade of grass. The odds are going to be astronomically against this sequence, yet it happened. This is the misuse of probability.

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And besides (in comparison with your analogy), you have yet to prove that coincidence actually was responsible for protein formation before saying that they, indeed, were formed by mere coincidence.

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I don't recall saying this.

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If not, then let us be assured that a Supreme Consciousness did de facto intervene in protein formation and a host of several other non-coincidental, non-chanced processes and mechanisms.

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Assuming for a moment that neither of us has any evidence, why should I assume an additional entity for which I have no evidence?------------------
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Originally posted by Ahmad:
Such as....?? If a coin always turns up heads when tossed a million times, is it more logical to attribute that to chance or to accept that there is conscious intervention?

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If a coin turns up heads every time in a million tossed, all you known is that the probability of it turning up heads is effectively 100%. You don't know anything about WHY it is turning up heads.

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The answer should be obvious.

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It is. The coin is loaded. Your jump to the conclusion that an unseen conscience entity is involved is unwarranted.First, how can you even include an unseen entity in the calculations at all?Second, being unseen, how do you know it is conscious?

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Understood. But the probability of the coincidental formation of a single protein molecule still stands. How, pertaining, to this have you based your analagous argument?

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No, it isn't understood, and the argument does not stand. You are just restating claim, but I don't think you are doing it to be obtuse. If you take something simple, like Penrose tiles, select an arbitrary starting pattern, and start laying them out. The probability that they will evolve into SOMETHING is 100%. If you then take the end result and calculate the chance that THIS PARTICULAR pattern will emerge from an arbitry starting point, the probabilities could be off the scale against. That is what you are doing with the proteins. You take the end result and calculate backwards. It simply doesn't work like that. There is nothing that says these particular proteins, enzymes, or gene had to have evolved. There is nothing that says anything had to evolve. It just happens to be the case that it did. Also consider that your probability calculations are performed with having maybe 99% of the relevant information-- like starting conditions.

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Since the basis of my argument is whether chance or a consciousness was responsible and since your analogous argument was pertaining to my statements, I would say it is more than relevant.

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I gave you an example of a situation wherein your use of probability would give an answer in contradiction to what is observed. It doesn't matter to the example whether or not the rock was thrown by my buddie or just dislodged due to the wind. In either case your probability arguments lead to the same contradictions.

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The falling of a rock from a hill (whether by chance or a conscious thrower; you haven't clarified) is far from creating an analogous argument against the impossibility of the coincidental formation of a single protein molecule. Give me a better analogy.

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It isn't an analogy about the formation of a protein molecule. It is meant to demonstrate the flaw in your use of statistics.

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Are you saying that coincidence resulted in the agreement of these three strict conditions for a useful protein all out of the blue??

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Are you saying that whole and happy proteins would have had to pop up from the 'soup' without any precursors? I doubt any researcher in abiogenisis would make this claim, and hence you are attacking a straw man.

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Yet at this point, evolution again has no answers, because in order for this protein to sustain its presence, it would need to be isolated from the natural setting that it is in and protected under very special conditions.

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What were the conditions in which the molecules formed, and what are the conditions within which they reside? You don't know. No one knows. Without that information the refutation has no teeth.

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If chance is not(and cannot) responsible for the formation of the building-blocks of the living cell, what then is??

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You have not made a case for this.And you have not answered the question either. Why assume an extra entity?------------------
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Originally posted by Ahmad:
So WHY is it turning up heads everytime it is tossed??

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Good question, but THAT it turns up heads every time does not imply the intervention of a God, which is how you seem to using the argument.

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Don't misunderstand me please. I never said that an unseen conscience is involved.

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That was a typo. I meant 'conscious' not 'conscience.' oops. And you have been implying the intervention of a conscious but unseen entity.

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This is just an example that if the coin (with a head and tail) is always turning up heads when it is tossed, then surely it might be a trick of the conscious tosser. Do you agree?

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Are you talking about the magician's trick? If someone practices enough you can learn to control the rotation of a coin. And yes, it could be a trick of the tosser. But 'could be' is proof of anything. Gee, everytime I throw a rock up, it comes back down. That COULD BE a trick of invisible aliens who push stuff down all the time.I can see where this is going. If you wish to infer that proteins, or any other element, are tricks of the tosser, you have to provide evidence of the tosser.

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I have not used the word unseen in my example.

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And this is relevant why? You are essentially talking about an UNSEEN entity-- Allah in your case.

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Since we don't have a time-machine to go back and see that evolution of proteins in action, what other better alternatives do you suppose we can adopt (other than probability calculations) to determine whether the first protein got evolved or was the original shape and structure when first consciously created??

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Probability calculations cannot answer this question. That is the whole point of this debate with you. If proteins were created, that evidence with show up in the hard data.

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It does not.

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Does too!!!!!!

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The rock is an inanimate object and will go any direction it is thrown onto (whether by a conscious thrower or by wind).

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hmm.... and chemicals are not inanimate? Strike that objection. We are talking about inanimate objects.

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While my example deals with the probability of the formation of a single complex amino acid coming together, in agreement with the strict conditions (as I aforementioned) and forming the building blocks of cells and thus life without any conscious intervention.

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But your example is a misuse of probability. Andya gave you another example.

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Flaw?

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March your butt over the math department of a major university.

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And besides, many scientists likewise have used probability calculations in the formation of protein molecules by chance like Coppedge (Evolution: Possible or Impossible), Harold Blum (Origin of species revisited), William Stokes, Robert Shappiro, Michael Behe (Darwin's black box) and they drew the same conclusion as J.D Thomas, "It is more plausible that a Great Builder with a master plan would be required for such a task."(J. D. Thomas, Evolution and Faith. Abilene, TX, ACU Press, 1988. p. 81-82)

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Yup, and make the same mistake you do, which is why the scientific world is not quaking in fear.

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Are you saying that the strict conditions for the viablity of protiens (as I pointed out earlier) is total trash and we still don't know??

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You have given the conditions in which modern proteins exist and are viable. What were the conditions on Earth 4 billion years ago? And what happen in the next two billion years? Have you carefully analyzed every possible option for precursor proteins, chemical environments, radiation? Think carefully.

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Hmm; When did I mention of an extra entity??

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The extra entity is the conscious agent to which you contiually allude.

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Are you assuming that the simplest Protein composed of 288 amino acids

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And this is the most simple POSSIBLE protein, or just the most simple existing protein? What about protein precursors?

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which can be arranged in 10^300 different ways

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Can it? How did you come to this conclusion? Chemical bonds are not completely random. It isn't like shuffling a deck of cards.------------------
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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Of course the orgin of all of the genes that arose in between bacteria and multicelluar organisms and between them and mammals or higher plants are part of even your definiton of evolution.

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Are you arguing that genetic material which arises in living animals, due to mutation/duplications/whatever, constitutes abiogenesis?------------------
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Originally posted by Ahmad:
What I intend to illustrate through my analogy that something highly improbable (almost impossible) such as the coincidental formation of proteins or the tossing of a coin that always turns out to be heads, is the conscious intervention of God and the tosser respectively. Do you agree?

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No, and I have explained why several time now. You don't appear to be listening. Once again, that the coin turns up heads every time no matter how improbable it is, does not tell you anything about WHY it turns up heads. Now, in the event of the coin tos you describe, it would be wise to investigate. So lets run through it. The tosser could be very good at 'trick' coin tossing. So we give the coin to a random selection of people. If the strange run of heads ceases, we know the answer. If not, we carefully determine the coin's center of gravity. If that coin is weighted then we know the answer. If not, then we have to look elsewhere for an answer. One of those other answers is that Goddidit. How do we test that? We have no evidence for God or for any of god's works, leaving out those proofs that require the proposition we are examining. So, with no evidence for the agent, it is idiotic to claim that the agent is responsible.

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Don't you think that the high improbability as the modern human minds have evaluated regarding the coincidental formation of proteins, enough evidence for the existence of the tosser a.k.a God??

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This is circular. See above.

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C'mon.. you don't expect every proteins to have the name of its creator like "Made by Allah", do you?

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It would have been very considerate for him to have done so, but no, I do expect it. However, if the universe was created at sometime in the recent past why does the evidence-- all of the evidence-- point toward a much different conclusion?

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Since chemicals like proteins do have protoplasm, which is the basic source of life, do you consider them to be inanimate? (Correct me if I am wrong)

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I'm sorry, what? Proteins have cytoplasm? Cytoplasm is the basic source of life? Have you taken a single biology or chemistry course in your life? [QUOTE][b]But your example is a misuse of probability.[/QUOTE]How?[/b][/quote]Good grief!!!!! I have been over this three or four times. Andya has explained it as well.

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That is a damning retort. Why don't you go ask a mathematician? What is funny about that suggestion?

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Who are you? A scholar, a scientist?? Do you have Ph.D? What are your credentials to undermine the scientists I have mentioned?

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Who are you? A scholar, a scientist? Do you have a Ph.D? What are your credentials to evaluate the works of the scientists you mention?You are making an appeal to authority. It is a fallacy. Credentials don't matter, the argument does. Besides which, the scientic world is not quaking, this should let you know that your few authorities are not impressive to the vast majority of the total number of authorities/scientists.

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I am not sure about this but are you suggesting that there is a difference between modern proteins and primitive ones? Elaborate plz.

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Yup. After 3 billion years, give or take, why do you think they would be the same?Abiogenesis does not propose that a modern protein popped out of the ocean, but that some tiny precursor molecule formed that happened to be able to replicate. The initial replicating molecules were not likely anything like modern proteins since modern proteins, as you have pointed out, depend upon a lot of other biochemical structures. You are attacking a straw man.{quoteAm I wrong in this assumption of a simple protein which can be arrange in 10^300 ways?][/quote]Are you? I ask again, what are your sources for this figure?

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And besides, a protein molecule of 288 amino acids is rather a modest one compared with some giant protein molecules consisting of thousands of amino acids.

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Please stop beating on that straw man.------------------
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