Evolution would've given us infrared eyesight

Here it is again, that blasted "it's too improbable" argument.I'm just going to give you a frame a reference for the kinds of numbers we're looking at here, since that is clearly lacking in your argument.Yes, you're right, in reality we're dealing with more options that 6 or 25 (which doesn't mean the analogy is wrong). For example, I work with bacteriophage (viruses that infect bacteria). Now, we can determine, roughly, the number of phage present in a solution by plating them on lawns of bacteria. The phage, when they reproduce, lyse the bacterial cells making a clearing in the lawn. The number of clearings (plaques) can be used to determine the original number of plaque forming units (bacteriophage) in the solution. You can then take a plug from the middle of a plaque, suspend the phage in solution and plate that again to determine the number of phage in one plaque. Now, on average for phages ID11 and PhiX, in one plaque no more than 1/2 a centimeter across, we regularly find numbers of phage to the order of 10^10. (That's 10 to the power of 10, or 10,000,000,000) That's one plaque. Now imagine there are 100 plaques, so that's 10^12 phage. So even if the chance of getting a beneficial mutation is 1 in a billion (10^9) That's still 1000 phage on average that get that mutation. And that's only on one plate! IN ONE GENERATION! I assure you, given the billions of years life has had on the planet, the rolling of dice has been sufficient enough to provide the mutations required for complex life.

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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

This is an excellent point. And may I add that we've found a molecule that can both contain genetic data and catalyze: RNA. Which is the whole basis for the RNA-world hypotheses/theory.Buzsaw:
My point in using the bacteriophage was that phage are the simplest form of "life" we know. In fact they're so simple, many do not even classify them as life, yet they evolve. Their genetic information is just a subject to natural selection as yours. Also, being more simplistic, they are more of them. Many, many, many, many more. So, one could infer that the numbers of possibly self-replicating molecules, even at the beginning, would be even higher.

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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

I believe I've already pointed out that RNA has both the ability to contain genetic information, as well as self-catalyze its replication:

quote:

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An RNA enzyme that catalyzes the RNA-templated joining of RNA was converted to a format whereby two enzymes catalyze each other's synthesis from a total of four oligonucleotide substrates. These cross-replicating RNA enzymes undergo self-sustained exponential amplification in the absence of proteins or other biological materials. Amplification occurs with a doubling time of about 1 hour and can be continued indefinitely. Populations of various cross-replicating enzymes were constructed and allowed to compete for a common pool of substrates, during which recombinant replicators arose and grew to dominate the population. These replicating RNA enzymes can serve as an experimental model of a genetic system. Many such model systems could be constructed, allowing different selective outcomes to be related to the underlying properties of the genetic system.

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This is the abstract for the paper Self-Sustained Replication of an RNA Enzyme by Tracey A. Lincoln and Gerald F. JoyceAny questions?

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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."