The Sex Life of 747 Aircraft

Several years ago, I offered a similar response, which I unfortunately cannot locate at the moment. That's a pity, since I thought it was brilliant, though presenting it to the creationist with whom I was corresponding was casting pearls before swine.Basically I suggested an experiment in which we toss some parts into a coffee can, put the lid back on it, and shake it vigorously for a long time. What we get from that experiment is deaf, not an assembled mechanism. The reason is that the assembly of mechanical parts doesn't work that way, so of course they didn't get assembled.But on the other hand, if you follow Sidney Fox's experiments with proteinoid microspheres and pour amino acids into a solution and heat them, then they will assemble themselves into short protein-like chains. The reason is that they do work that way.But the fundamental problem with the tornado-in-a-junkyard analogy is that it doesn't apply. I took the time to look it up in the source, Fred Hoyle's book. He was applying a single-step selection model, not the cumulative selection model of evolution (refer to beginning of Chapter 3 in Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker"). He had set up the problem entirely wrong. He may have indeed been describing the probably of a tornado assemblying a 747, but he most certainly was saying nothing about the probabilities of evolution nor of abiogenesis.

Example:You're playing poker and you are dealt a hand of five cards. What was the probability that you would have been dealt that one particular hand? We can calculate that probability and it is very small, hence very improbable.But what is the probability that you would have been dealt a hand? Barring some event that would have interrupted the game or removed you from the game (eg, somebody poisoned your martini), that probability would be 100%, a dead certainty.

But therein lies the rub: Single step from no cell to cell. No intermediate steps. Single-step selection, which is foreign to evolution, though not to supernatural creation, offers very low probabilities. Cumulative selection, which is what evolution uses, offers much higher probabilities, sometimes even approaching inevitability. Hoyle was using single-step selection and ignoring cumulative selection.Examination and comparison of the probabilities of single-step and cumulative selection can be found on my MPROBS (Monkey Probabilities) page at No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/mprobs.html.

Yet again, since you didn't hear me before:
It's a question of what kind of probability model is being used.If you use a single-step-selection probability model, then the chances of success are virtually assured to be abysmally small.If you use a cumulative-selection probability model, assuming that it is applicable, then the chances of success are much greater, even verging on inevitability. It appears that part of the reason for this is that the probability of every single attempt failing becomes vanishingly small.As I said, I worked out the math. I gave you a link to my write-up.Cumulative selection is much more descriptive of evolutionary processes; indeed, the model was based on how life works.Years ago, I looked up that section in Hoyle's book and saw that he used a single-step-selection model. Regardless of what actual probabilities we could find and assign to his model, he had chosen a model that doesn't describe evolutionary processes and that is virtually guaranteed to yield abysmal results.

Grizz is correct in pointing out that we do not know exactly what the probabilities are.I am pointing out that the more important problem with Hoyle's model is that the model itself is wrong.Now, it should eventually be possible for us to finally be able to determine those probabilities, eliminating the problem that Grizz points out. At that point, one would then want to apply those probabilities to Hoyle's model and arrive at the wrong conclusions. The conclusions would be wrong because the model itself is wrong.Grizz holds out hope for creationists that they could eventually make honest use of Hoyle's analogy. I'm telling them that that analogy is fundamentally flawed and it could never be used honestly.Edited by dwise1, : slight rewording

I wasn't saying that you were a creationist nor that you were intentionally providing creationists with hope. I apologize if anyone misunderstood that I had.I just meant that by objecting to the Hoyle argument only on the basis of our not yet knowing what the probabilities are, that holds the door open, inadvertantly though it may be, to their one day being able to say "OK, now we do know the probabilities, so let's use Hoyle's claim to finish evolution off!" You obviously didn't mean to provide them this out, but I see their opportunity there nonetheless.Also quite obviously, creationists' probability arguments and claims are never meant to actually consider the probabilities of actual applicable models, but rather are meant solely to pronounce whatever idea they oppose as being so improbable as to be deemed virtually impossible. That is why they use such things as single-step selection models (eg, an entire modern cell forming spontaneously out of nothing but its component elements and compounds).That is why we need to say that, even though we do not yet know enough to work out the actual probabilities or anything close to them, we do know for a fact that that model proposed by Hoyle is wrong and should never be used because it is guaranteed to yield erroneous results. Nor should it ever be used as an argument against anything or even for anything, because it is false and deceptive.Then when we have come closer to working out the probabilities, or we are engaged in fruitful speculation, we can develop and apply more accurate models with which we can honestly evaluate our ideas.Edited by dwise1, : .