When an object slides on a table and friction slows it down, the kinetic energy is lost. It is not conserved. Scientists solved the problem by inventing a new energy: internal energy or heat energy. The kinetic energy is transformed into heat energy.
Interestingly, they also measured the heat energy, verified it existed, and through experiment were able to show that this explained the loss of motion due to friction.
Of course this energy never existed before these scientists invented it.
Amusingly, now that it has been invented you have to put oil and coolant in your car to prevent the buildup of heat energy from friction from causing damage to the car. How much simpler it would be if they had not invented it eh?
quote:Given enough time and successive splittings, the processes that produce two species from one will result in the entire diversity of life.
In other words evolution is sufficient to explain speciation, and specieation, along with more evolution, is sufficient to explain the entire diversity of life.
Now, in case you missed it, the entire diversity of life includes those organisms that are complex (however you define it) and how they developed.
This is not true of the Berkeley lesson. The Berkely lesson says natural selection explains complexity.
Intriguingly, the links I gave your for Berkeley did not mention complexity: are you mixing up terminology again?
quote:Through the process of descent with modification, the common ancestor of life on Earth gave rise to the fantastic diversity that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today.
quote:Life is full of grand complications, such as aerodynamic wings, multi-part organs like eyes, and intricate chemical pathways. When faced with such complexity, both opponents and proponents of evolution, Darwin included, have asked the question: how could it evolve?
There are several ways such complex novelties may evolve:
Consider a deck arranged with all the suits together (spads-hearts-diamonds-clubs) and another deck where individual cards are all arranged (1S, 2S, 3S...1H, 2H, 3H).
They both have the same entropy.
The entropy of the the first deck is greater than the entropy of the second deck because the chances of getting the first deck is greater than the chances of getting the second deck.
The entropy of the deck has nothing to do with the order of the cards or the probability of having that order.
Message 274 You are correct that each deck has a probability of one in 52! The number of decks with any order is 52! The number of decks with a specific order is 1.
And someone choosing to specify one specific arrangement over all others does not give it any more energy.
The entropy of a deck with a specific order is very small.
It is the same as the entropy of a deck of unknown order, ie any of the possible arrangements.
The entropy of such a deck will increase until the deck is fully shuffled.
Amusingly there is no real way to determine if a deck is "fully shuffled" -- you could shuffle it a million times and then just happen to end up with the cards all in their original order, or in some other specified arrangement.
You need to understand this to understand evolution.
Except for one small problem: it has absolutely nothing to do with evolution. You don't have random mutations introducing new cards into the deck and you don't have natural selection eliminating some cards and duplicating others. You don't even have genetic drift, where all the cards of one suit are eliminated.
Let me repeat the following quote from my YouTube video:
And, fascinatingly, this is still as fatuously false as the first time. If you were paying attention (and trying to learn the truth) you should know this.
Re: Amazingly, evolution STILL explains the diversity of life including complexity
Hi again dkroemer,
We don't doubt that complexity evolved.
Good, but the question still remains - how do you define complexity.
How do you measure whether one organism is more or less complex than another.
You say that there is an observable difference between modern bacteria and monkeys -- what is it?
If we assign 100 "roemers" of complexity to, say, Escherichia coli (a well known and documented bacteria in science), then how many "roemers" does a Rhesus Macaque (another well studied species) have?
The question is what were the processes?
Evolution and speciation, as has been explained.
The U. Mich lessons say nothing unscientific. But the Berkeley lesson says natural selection explains the complexity of life.
Can you provide the link to the actual Berkeley statement you are using for this?
And then show that the process discussed on the Berkeley page is entirely missing from the UMich pages?
I'm just curious why you see it this way.
The U. Mich lessons say nothing unscientific. But the Berkeley lesson says natural selection explains the complexity of life. Likewise Gerhart and Kirsner and Kenneth Miller do not say natural selection explains the complexity of life, but Richard Dawkins does.
And yet all of them say that evolution as a whole explains the diversity of life.
The diversity of life necessarily includes any variations in complexity, no matter how you define complexity, so explaining the all the known diversity of life necessarily includes explaining all the known complexity of life.
Re: Amazingly, evolution STILL explains the diversity of life including complexity
Hi dkroemer, still repeating falsified claims?
I have already proved by citing facts and authorities that natural selection explains only adaptation, not common descent.
Which amusingly, does not mean that common descent does not occur and is not observed all around you.
Common descent occurs through speciation, and natural selection is ONE of the mechanisms that can contribute (but doesn't have to) to the process of evolution that leads to speciation, in general, and the formation of nested hierarchies of descent from common ancestors, in particular.
This group is not interested in biology, but in justifying their immature feeling that they are more enlightened and more rational that people who believe in God: Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindues, and Budhhists. Since opponents of Darwinism tend to be religious, promoting Darwinism is an exercise in bigotry.
And I'm a deist, so your claim is obviously a false opinion based on confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance, rather than reason and evidence.
It was understood from the very beginning that natural selection could not explain the evolution of something as complex as the human eye.
Which is also obviously a false opinion based on confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance, rather than reason and evidence, because Darwin discussed how an eye could evolve by stages in his original book, The Origin of Species, first edition:
quote: ... p186/187 ... Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound.
You can do a couple of simple experiments on your own:
go out and stand in the sun with a blind-fold on -- can you detect which side is facing the sun?
take the blindfold off but keep your eyes closed -- can you detect the light through your eyelids and tell the direction and elevation of the sun?
put on a pair of glasses with a prescription counter to your vision so that everything is out of focus -- can you determine general shapes and movements of things around you?
Can you describe how each of these sensations would not have a selective advantage over an organism that did not have these sensations?
... A very crude calculation is one in 20600. I pick the number 600 because that is the number of letters in a sonnet. I mention sonnets because the number of letters in the alphabet is about equal to the number of amino acids.
This calculation is crude for two reasons. It ignores natural selection and it assumes that the jumping around of amino acids is what produces complexity. My layman's understanding of faciliated variation is that it is clumps of amino acids that jump around in evolution. ...
And the calculation is not only crude but totally bogus from start to finish. It is bogus because (1) it does not model how natural systems evolve, and (2) the calculation is mathematically wrong. See the old improbable probability problem for some of the basic math errors.
In particular see Message 23, where I've used 2051 bonds between molecules, instead of your 20600:
quote:Common error #2 The secondary fallacy of these "calculations" is that they do not calculate the probabilities properly. I'll have to spend a little time and space on this to show the mathematical error involved in these calculations:
Let us assume a protein is formed with the pattern
51 bonds between 52 amino acids all in one particular order, where each letter represents one of 20 amino acids, and the resultant calculation by {creationist\IDist\etcist} is that the probability of this forming is
pm = (1/20)51 = 4.44E-67 or 1 in 2.25E+66
Your typical "creatortionista" number. But this only calculates one way this molecule can form: this ignores the fact that the bonds in the molecule can be formed in any order and still end up with the same final result.
The probability of the first bond forming is not (1/20), because any one of the 51 bonds can form first.
To calculate this mathematical probability properly, first we calculate the probability that not one of the bonds forms, and the mathematical probability of this bonding {not} occurring is:
p{NOT}51 = {1-(1/20}51 = 0.07310 or 1 in 13.7
And this means that the probability of the first bond forming is actually:
p51 = 1-p{NOT}51 = 1-{1-(1/20}51 = 0.92690 or 1 in 1.079
Almost a sure thing eh?
We do the same thing for the next bond, any one of the remaining 50 bonds has the mathematical probability of:
p50 = 1-p{NOT}50 = 1-{1-(1/20}50 = 0.92306 or 1 in 1.083
A little less sure, but still a pretty solid likelihood eh? Let's carry on ...
p49 = 1-p{NOT}49 = 1-{1-(1/20}49 = 0.9190 or 1 in 1.0881 p48 = 1-p{NOT}48 = 1-{1-(1/20}48 = 0.9147 or 1 in 1.0932 p47 = 1-p{NOT}47 = 1-{1-(1/20}47 = 0.9103 or 1 in 1.0986 p46 = 1-p{NOT}46 = 1-{1-(1/20}46 = 0.9055 or 1 in 1.1043 p45 = 1-p{NOT}45 = 1-{1-(1/20}45 = 0.9006 or 1 in 1.1104 p44 = 1-p{NOT}44 = 1-{1-(1/20}44 = 0.8953 or 1 in 1.1169 p43 = 1-p{NOT}43 = 1-{1-(1/20}43 = 0.8898 or 1 in 1.1238 p42 = 1-p{NOT}42 = 1-{1-(1/20}42 = 0.8840 or 1 in 1.1312 p41 = 1-p{NOT}41 = 1-{1-(1/20}41 = 0.8779 or 1 in 1.1391 p40 = 1-p{NOT}40 = 1-{1-(1/20}40 = 0.8715 or 1 in 1.1475 p39 = 1-p{NOT}39 = 1-{1-(1/20}39 = 0.8647 or 1 in 1.1564 p38 = 1-p{NOT}38 = 1-{1-(1/20}38 = 0.8576 or 1 in 1.1660 p37 = 1-p{NOT}37 = 1-{1-(1/20}37 = 0.8501 or 1 in 1.1763 p36 = 1-p{NOT}36 = 1-{1-(1/20}36 = 0.8422 or 1 in 1.1873 p35 = 1-p{NOT}35 = 1-{1-(1/20}35 = 0.8339 or 1 in 1.1992 p34 = 1-p{NOT}34 = 1-{1-(1/20}34 = 0.8252 or 1 in 1.2119 p33 = 1-p{NOT}33 = 1-{1-(1/20}33 = 0.8160 or 1 in 1.2255 p32 = 1-p{NOT}32 = 1-{1-(1/20}32 = 0.8063 or 1 in 1.2403 p31 = 1-p{NOT}31 = 1-{1-(1/20}31 = 0.7961 or 1 in 1.2561 p30 = 1-p{NOT}30 = 1-{1-(1/20}30 = 0.7854 or 1 in 1.2733 p29 = 1-p{NOT}29 = 1-{1-(1/20}29 = 0.7741 or 1 in 1.2919 p28 = 1-p{NOT}28 = 1-{1-(1/20}28 = 0.7622 or 1 in 1.3120 p27 = 1-p{NOT}27 = 1-{1-(1/20}27 = 0.7497 or 1 in 1.3339 p26 = 1-p{NOT}26 = 1-{1-(1/20}26 = 0.7365 or 1 in 1.3578 p25 = 1-p{NOT}25 = 1-{1-(1/20}25 = 0.7226 or 1 in 1.3839 p24 = 1-p{NOT}24 = 1-{1-(1/20}24 = 0.7080 or 1 in 1.4124 p23 = 1-p{NOT}23 = 1-{1-(1/20}23 = 0.6926 or 1 in 1.4437 p22 = 1-p{NOT}22 = 1-{1-(1/20}22 = 0.6765 or 1 in 1.4783 p21 = 1-p{NOT}21 = 1-{1-(1/20}21 = 0.6594 or 1 in 1.5164 p20 = 1-p{NOT}20 = 1-{1-(1/20}20 = 0.6415 or 1 in 1.5588 p19 = 1-p{NOT}19 = 1-{1-(1/20}19 = 0.6226 or 1 in 1.6060 p18 = 1-p{NOT}18 = 1-{1-(1/20}18 = 0.6028 or 1 in 1.6590 p17 = 1-p{NOT}17 = 1-{1-(1/20}17 = 0.5819 or 1 in 1.7186 p16 = 1-p{NOT}16 = 1-{1-(1/20}16 = 0.5599 or 1 in 1.7861 p15 = 1-p{NOT}15 = 1-{1-(1/20}15 = 0.5367 or 1 in 1.8632 p14 = 1-p{NOT}14 = 1-{1-(1/20}14 = 0.5123 or 1 in 1.9519 p13 = 1-p{NOT}13 = 1-{1-(1/20}13 = 0.4867 or 1 in 2.0548 p12 = 1-p{NOT}12 = 1-{1-(1/20}12 = 0.4596 or 1 in 2.1756 p11 = 1-p{NOT}11 = 1-{1-(1/20}11 = 0.4312 or 1 in 2.3191 p10 = 1-p{NOT}10 = 1-{1-(1/20}10 = 0.4013 or 1 in 2.4921 p9 = 1-p{NOT}9 = 1-{1-(1/20}9 = 0.3698 or 1 in 2.7045 p8 = 1-p{NOT}8 = 1-{1-(1/20}8 = 0.3366 or 1 in 2.9711 p7 = 1-p{NOT}7 = 1-{1-(1/20}7 = 0.3017 or 1 in 3.3150 p6 = 1-p{NOT}6 = 1-{1-(1/20}6 = 0.2649 or 1 in 3.7749 p5 = 1-p{NOT}5 = 1-{1-(1/20}5 = 0.2262 or 1 in 4.4205 p4 = 1-p{NOT}4 = 1-{1-(1/20}4 = 0.1855 or 1 in 5.3910 p3 = 1-p{NOT}3 = 1-{1-(1/20}3 = 0.1426 or 1 in 7.0114 p2 = 1-p{NOT}2 = 1-{1-(1/20}2 = 0.0975 or 1 in 10.2564 p1 = 1-p{NOT}1 = 1-{1-(1/20}1 = 0.0500 or 1 in 20.0000
Notice that the last bond formed is the only one that has the mathematical probability of (1/20). Now to calculate the probability of all 52 amino acids lining up in the above formation with the bonds formed in any order we multiply the probabilities of each of the bonding stages, and we get:
pm = (0.9269)x(0.9231)x(0.9190)x(0.9147)x(0.9103)x(0.9055) x(0.9006)x(0.8953)x(0.8898)x(0.8840)x(0.8779)x(0.8715)x(0.8647) x(0.8576)x(0.8501)x(0.8422)x(0.8339)x(0.8252)x(0.8160)x(0.8063) x(0.7961)x(0.7854)x(0.7741)x(0.7622)x(0.7497)x(0.7365)x(0.7226) x(0.7080)x(0.6926)x(0.6765)x(0.6594)x(0.6415)x(0.6226)x(0.6028) x(0.5819)x(0.5599)x(0.5367)x(0.5123)x(0.4867)x(0.4596)x(0.4312) x(0.4013)x(0.3698)x(0.3366)x(0.3017)x(0.2649)x(0.2262)x(0.1855) x(0.1426)x(0.0975)x(0.0500) = 5.39E-13 or 1 in 1.85E+12
Which, while still large is significantly "more likely" than 1 in 2.25E+66. In fact it is 1.21E+54 times more likely.
And the longer you take these kinds of calculations out the disparity between the "creatortionista" calculation and the real mathematical calculation grows.
And this still does not adequately model all the possible ways the molecule could form.
For starters, there are only 20 amino acids so those 52 positions have to have some repeats: the likelihood of a certain amino acid forming a "wrong" bond for one location does not mean that it is not "right" for another location, and the more often a certain amino acid is repeated in the whole protein the more this becomes a factor. To properly model this you need to apply it to specific examples.
For further possibilities, there are any number of larger molecules that could be formed with "mistake" sections in them, where one or more amino acids are injected into the above sequence during formation, but which are then knocked out (cosmic ray bombardment, copy error, etc) leaving the proper formed molecule. This is not included in the "creatortionista" calculations, it is not even addressed.
As you should be able to figure out, if we do this for your 20600 instead, that due to the fact that only the last one is 1/20 and that the numbers you add to the multiplication will be between 0.9269 (at the top of the list) and (your top of the list) ...
p599 = 1-p{NOT}51 = 1-{1-(1/20}599 = 1-4.53e-14 =0.999999999999955 or 1 in 1.000000000000045
... and the longer the chain the closer this first value approaches 1.
In order to properly calculate the probability of an event occurring you have to model all the possible different ways the event could occur, and this has yet to be addressed by the creationists in general and you in particular.
I have already proved ...
You have "proved" nothing other than an incredible misundertanding of evolution.
... by citing facts and authorities that natural selection explains only adaptation, not common descent. ...
Cherry picked quote mines are not facts, and ignoring quotes by the same authors that contradict your claim is called confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias does not lead you to truth. You can find positive evidence for anything, even that the earth is flat. The problem is not that you need to find evidence to support your position, but that you cannot ignore evidence that contradicts it and have a valid claim.
Calling a university that contradicts your claim "liars" is not dealing with the evidence that contradicts your claim. This is called delusion:
... This group responds by giving me lectures about evolution ...
To show you the multiple errors in your misunderstanding of evolution.
... and by saying you can't prove you are right by quoting biology textbooks and experts in the field. ...
Because quote mining does not turn confirmation bias and fantasy into reality. If you only cherry pick the bits and pieces that conform to your interpretation and ignore and deny the evidence that contradicts you (like claiming that the whole Berkely biology department are liars), then you are not proving anything.
... My YouTube video gives a very concise and easy-to-understand refuation of Darwinism.
Garbage in, garbage out.
Logic based on false premises is false.
Repeating false assertions does not make them correct.
Putting false assertions on YouTube does not make them correct.
Seems well explained to me, what it calculates is the probability that each bond could not form at each stage and deducts that from 1.
Take the first bond -- there are 52 molecules in the example, so there are 51 bonds that need to form to make the overall molecule chain, and the probability that NOT ONE of them will form is:
p{NOT}51 = {1-(1/20}51 = 0.07310
Then you subtract this from 1 to find the probability than ONE of the bonds will form:
p51 = 1-p{NOT}51 = 1-{1-(1/20}51 = 0.92690 or 1 in 1.07886
Fairly certain eh?
If you think about it, there are only 20 amino acids, and the probability of any two of them combining is 1 (given that they spontaneously combine by normal chemistry), so it's just a matter of any two combining matching any one of the ordered bonds in the overall molecule chain.
The longer the overall molecule chain is, the more likely it is that any bond between ANY two amino acids will replicate one of the bonds in the overall molecule chain, so the longer the molecule is, the more the probability of this first bond approaches 1.
When it is done for a 600 molecule chain with 599 bonds between amino acids, the probability of the first bond NOT forming is:
p{NOT}599 = {1-(1/20}599 =4.5336e-14
Then you subtract this from 1 to find the probability than ONE of the 599 bonds in the overall molecule chain will form:
p599 = 1-p{NOT}599 = 1-{1-(1/20}599 =0.999999999999955 or 1 in 1.000000000000045
Or almost certain to form, as predicted above.
Why do you only do a calculation for a protein with only 50 amino acid?
Actually it is 52 amino acids in the overall molecule chain in my calculation, not 50.
Curiously, it is not the length of the chain that is important here, but the method of calculating the correct probability. Once you have the correct methodology you can apply it to any chain length.
Amusingly, once you go past 52 molecules with 51 bonds, then end result is not significantly different, because the probability of the first bonds are close to 1:
The probability of forming the first of 51 bonds is 0.92690227348712233718942033985896
The probability of forming the first of 599 bonds is 0.99999999999995466437910255345756
And therefore we know that all the bonds between 51 and 599 are between these values, and not 1/20.
Why do you only do a calculation for a protein with only 50 amino acid?
Because the purpose is to show that the (1/20)x method of calculation is wrong. In the case of 52 molecules it is off by 54 ORDERS OF MAGNETUDE -- a pretty large error eh?
Proteins involve hundred of amino acids.
There is no real point in providing such a calculation for an actual molecule, because (1) even this calculation does not model all the ways that such a molecule could form, and (2) this still does not model how proteins are made in natural processes that involve modification and selection.
The reason professional biologists don't do these calcuations is that the primary structure of proteins does not begin to describe the complexity of life.
No, the reason that professional biologists don't do these calculations is because they know they do not model the way proteins are formed by natural processes that involve modification and selection. They know there is no point in doing pointless calculations.
In my YouTube video ("The Truth About Evolution and Religion") I explain Gerhart and Kirschners calcuation for, in effect, a 15 amino acid protein.
Amusingly, your video is based on your opinion (which is full of misrepresentation and misunderstanding), and as such is not any kind of reference for the validity of your opinion. Do you understand the fallacy of circular logic? Your video showing your opinion is not validation for your opinion.
You have misunderstood and misrepresented so much, it is highly possible that what Gerhart and Kirschners say is not accurately portrayed. Fascinatingly, it doesn't matter, because the issue is what biology in general and evolution in particular say, how things work in the real world.
I can't understand the relevance of the probability of a bond forming?
You were the one who said:
Message 309: I could not follow your calculations.
I'm glad my explanation made it clear to you, and that you no longer think that (1/20)x is a valid calculation for a molecule with x bonds.
If you have two amino acids A and B, there are two possible combinations AB and BA. The probability of getting AB is 50%.
Actually there are four, as A and B each have two ends, so you could get A1:B1, A2:B1, A1:B2, and A2:B2. The probability of each of these is 25%.
B1:A1 is the same molecule as A1:B1
Assuming that the probability of A combining with B is 1.
Of course this ignores the chemistry involved, and the chemistry may only allow one combination of A and B to form, in which case the probability of that one form occurring is 1 and the probability for the other forms is 0.
This, of course, is another reason why these probability calculations do not model natural formation of proteins and thus are pointless to make and silly to depend on in any argument.
Confusing terminology results in a confused argument that is not understood
Hi Dr Adequate,
A thing could be very complex without anyone knowing anything about it.
Unless of course dkroemer is using "knowledge" to mean something else, like "information", or the knowledge that would be needed to describe\duplicate it.
Given the attitude towards ID, I'd say he wants to say information without saying information ...
Just like he tries to use natural selection for mutation.
Which of course is one of his main problems: confusing terminology results in a confused argument that is not understood and relatively meaningless.
With this in mind, the probability of getting a protein from a soup of amino acids is the reciprical of 20600.
Except that it isn't, and you should know this now, as it has been demonstrated that your calculation does not calculate the probability properly\correctly. See Message 305
quote:The probability of the first bond forming is not (1/20), because any one of the 51 bonds can form first.
To calculate this mathematical probability properly, first we calculate the probability that not one of the bonds forms, and the mathematical probability of this bonding {not} occurring is:
p{NOT}51 = {1-(1/20}51 = 0.07310 or 1 in 13.7
And this means that the probability of the first bond forming is actually:
p51 = 1-p{NOT}51 = 1-{1-(1/20}51 = 0.92690 or 1 in 1.079
quote:The longer the overall molecule chain is, the more likely it is that any bond between ANY two amino acids will replicate one of the bonds in the overall molecule chain, so the longer the molecule is, the more the probability of this first bond approaches 1.
When it is done for a 600 molecule chain with 599 bonds between amino acids, the probability of the first bond NOT forming is:
p{NOT}599 = {1-(1/20}599 =4.5336e-14
Then you subtract this from 1 to find the probability than ONE of the 599 bonds in the overall molecule chain will form:
p599 = 1-p{NOT}599 = 1-{1-(1/20}599 =0.999999999999955 or 1 in 1.000000000000045
Or almost certain to form, as predicted above.
Why do you only do a calculation for a protein with only 50 amino acid?
Because the purpose is to show that the (1/20)x method of calculation is wrong. In the case of 52 molecules it is off by 54 ORDERS OF MAGNETUDE -- a pretty large error eh?
And even this does not model all the ways that such a molecule can be formed by natural processes.
Nor does it model the chemical limitations on which bonds can form and which cannot. If A never bonds with C due to chemical limitations, then including AC in any other set of combinations to calculate the total possible variations means these calculations are false\wrong\incorrect\bogus.
These are simple concepts to understand.
Understanding them means that you won't repeat the nonsense that the probability is in any way calculated by 20600.
Because it is silly to keep repeating false information.
Why, dkroemer, don't you ever post the rest of the paragraph?
"Each of the four identical polypeptide chains that together make up transthyretin is composed of 127 amino acidsThe primary structure is like the order of letters in a very long word. If left to chance, there would be 20127 different ways of making a polypeptide chain 127 amino acids long." (page 82, Biology by Campbell and Reece)
I bet you copied this off of some creationist source, rather than actually reading the book. Can you tell me if your source is the 7th edition or the 8th? The 7th was published 2004, the 8th was published 2007, and your website says the version you quoted from was published in 2008.
quote:PRIMARY STRUCTURE The primary structure of a protein is its unique sequence of amino acids. As an example, let’s consider transthyretin, a globular protein found in the blood that transports vitamin A and a particular thyroid hormone throughout the body. Each of the four identical polypeptide chains that, together, make up transthyretin is composed of 127 amino acids. Shown here is one of these chains unraveled for a closer look at its primary structure. A specific one of the 20 amino acids, indicated here by its three-letter abbreviation, occupies each of the 127 positions along the chain. The primary structure is like the order of letters in a very long word. If left to chance, there would be 20127 different ways of making a polypeptide chain 127 amino acids long.However, the precise primary structure of a protein is determined not by the random linking of amino acids, but by inherited genetic information.
(color bold and underline for emphasis)
Because it is NOT left to chance (and Campbell and Reece know this), the calculation is acknowledged as bogus.
The point is that it is a standard part of biology to do probability calculations of this sort. Here is another two:
Actually all you have shown is that it is a standard part of biology to compare the results of evolution to random chance to emphasis the effect of selection.
Because chemistry limits molecular reactions and because selection filters results, probability calculations are useless.
Hi dkroemer, you do understand that repeating falsified assertions doesn't make them true don't you?
Even with the filtering, there is no explanation for the increase in the complexity of life.
But there is, it is a simple matter of probability in a constrained system.
Evolution in general, and natural selection (with the real meaning, as used by biologists) in particular, selects for phenotypes that work within an ecology. That's the simple part.
Every adaptation can either add to complexity of the parent species, reduce complexity of the parent species, or have the same complexity as the parent species.
Because the degree of "complexity" is not a hereditary trait that is subject to evolution, each of these conditions have an equal probability of occurring.
So how does increased complexity occur in evolution?
The problem - for you - is that the probability field is biased towards increased complexity, because it cannot end up with less than 0 complexity.
Now we will take a single die, and designate 1 and 2 as reduced complexity, 3 and 4 and maintaining the same level of complexity, and 5 and 6 as increased complexity. Thus we have equal probability to increase, decrease or stay the same, yes?
Next we have a line with tick marks from 0 to 1,000
Every time you get 1 or 2 move you move 1 tick towards the 0 end ... except that if you are at 0 you stay there (there is no negative complexity).
Every time you get 3 or 4 you stay where you are.
Every time you get 5 or 6 you move 1 tick away from 0.
Where do you end up?
Throw 10 die and see where each one ends up.
Throw the die 100 times - where do you end up?
Throw 100 die and see where each one ends up.
Throw the dice 1000 times - where do you end up?
Do the same thing with 1000 die and and see where each one ends up. See how their distribution looks as you keep throwing the die.
Any bets on the shape of the curve?
Any bets on the limit of movement away from the 0 mark?
Evolution explains the diversity of life.
Life can increase in complexity or decrease in complexity or stay the same as far as fitness\adaptation\selection is concerned.
Complexity increases over time due to the biased probabilities of increasing complexity versus decreasing complexity.
You end up with increasing complexity in some life forms over time, in the same way that neutral drift explains how variations not subject to evolution in one ecology spread within the population/s.
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