Coragyps

And your basis for calculating all those long odds are scientific? Show 'em to me.

RufusAtticus

Once again another creationist thinks that the origin of life has to do with cells. A little hint, no one in biology/biochemistry thinks that the first imperfect replicator was a cell. Therefore, all of these "accidental" events your talking about don't matter because they were preceeded by simpler events.

Statistically, to determine the probability of an event one must know the conditions in which it occured. Statistically, one must also consider the number of trials too. Hmm, you apparantly left these out.

Nothing because your probabilities are fundamentally flawed.

Why? Biology doesn't think the first cell originated by "random" processes. Only creationists, ignorant of biology make such an argument.

Depends on how rigged the deal is. But whatever does this have to do with biology.

And you've determined that from years of distinguished research into the biology and biochemistry of life? Oh wait. . . . You're confusing your ignorance of biology with Biology's ignorance of biology.

Why should it? When creationists not only can't provide any evidence that life didn't evolve, but put forth ideas that were debunked by science hundreds of years ago.

And you'd rather construct a straw-man instead of learning what actual science states.

If the shoe fits. . . . It's a little difficult for you to claim creationists are scientific when you don't even know the difference between the origin of life (abiogenesis) and the diversification of life (evolution).

Rhaedas

Species numbers would be ever increasing, if so many of them would stop dying off. Take Homo sapiens, the only survivor on this particular branch.

As for evolutionism...er, actually you mean abiogenesis. They sound a lot alike...

Your first statistic is correct. However the assumption that comes up with that number is dead wrong. Might as well calcualte the chances of a full grown person emerging from the dirt, same improbability.

I'm not even going to suggest you go to talkorigins.org to look at a real statistics breakdown of abiogenesis, pre-RNA, and the like...I know you won't. Let's just say that you have to start at a reasonable beginning, not try and make current biology pop up out of nowhere. That would be a miracle.

GodLessWarrior

I didn't know anyone around here was for the spontaneous generation of DNA.......

..... perhaps you need to learn a little bit about what you arguing against.....

..besides, abiogenesis is DIFFERENT than evolution.

theyeti

This looks suspiciously like another plagiarist. And one who's already given up defending his original assertion (common descent) and has instead shifted the goal post back to abiogenesis. *sigh* I'll give it a go anyway.

Where do you get this number? How was it calculated?

There are cells alive today that use fewer proteins than this. M. Genitalium has only 500 genes; it can survive with as few as 200 under the right conditions. And of course there is no reason to believe that the first cell needed any set number of proteins (if it used proteins at all).

And again, where are you getting these calculations? They are bogus; it is not possible to calculate such things with any reasonable degree of accuracy. For example, it's obvious that your so-called calculations use a "tornado-in-a-junkyard" approach. This is bogus because as even most creationists realize, neither proteins nor DNA have to be specified with any tight degree of tolerance. They can tolerate a great deal of variation and still be functional. And it's partly due to the fact that we don't know what the limits of variation are that we can't calculate the odds of protein X having formed. Nor do we have any way of knowing that protein X was necessary for primordial life. The earliest life could have been as simple as a self-replicating RNA strand.

????

Chemicals in solution aren't in the "right place". They're just in solution, which means that they move about randomly and constantly. The question is a matter of concentration, which evaporating pools would have easily taken care of.

What? That doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.

Pretty low. Stick some phospholipids in water and watch what happens.

Given that cytoplasm is defined as all of the stuff within the cell, aren't you beintg a bit redundant here?

The first cell had no orgnaelles. Most cells today don't have any.

Same as above.

Unless you have RNA...

And what is a "properly coded" DNA strand supposed to mean?

Same as above.

Amino acids are readily created through abiotic processes by the way...

Redundant again.

Pretty low. Proteinaceous microspheres form readily under laboratory conditions.

If it's here on Earth, the odds of the environment being hospitable are 100%, given that we know the Earth is hospitable to life.

Pretty low. Plenty of organisms today live off of abiotic chemicals.

That one makes no sense. DNA doesn't care what cell it's in.

Most cells don't undergo mitosis.

No one, neither a statistician nor a biochemist, could tell you with any degree of accuracy what the odds for any of the given things above to happen is (at least the ones that are coherent). Trying to pretend that you know such things pegs you as a complete ignoramus, and shows that you've never attempted to read, let alone understand, the relevant literature on cell formation.

theyeti

Doubting Didymus

Repeat after me these three simple words, plus one slightly big one:


Ribonucleic. Acid. Came. First.




(We are getting a lot of opponents these days. I hope this keeps up. If Oolon had kept it bottled up any longer he'd've burst.)

theyeti

Heh, a new paper just out scores one more for the RNA world:

Small Structural Costs for Evolution from RNA to RNP-based Catalysis.

edited to add:

Shit, make that two:

Processivity of ribozyme-catalyzed RNA polymerization.

theyeti

caravelair

boy. that certainly is convincing. you cannot imagine something, therefore it is not possible. what a tremendous argument you have there.

KeithHarwood

Let me get this straight. If an event happens roughly once every 10^50 trials then it doesn't happen at all?

You want an example of something even more impossible? Right. Over the past few billion years the majority of organisms died before being able to reproduce themselves. Let's say, to be generous that half of them did. Now most of those organisms were fairly short-lived but, to be generous, let's say that one generation was twenty years. That means there have been 10^8 generations over the last couple of billion years. The probability all my ancestors survived long enough to reproduce is two to that power, or roughly 10^30000000. That's a hell of a lot bigger than 10^50, so is totally impossible. But it happened. And if you think that's impossible, what do you think of the coincidence that the same thing is true of my daughters . Both of them. My wife, who is very interested in genealogy, is pretty sure it's true in her family as well.

So by your reasoning neither I nor my family exist. We are impossible.

(OTOH, it might explain why I sometimes find it difficult to get served in bars.)

Doctor X

More Fun with [s]Lies[/s] Statistics!!!

Since, say, only one out of a million of sperm fertilizes an egg . . . extend the chance of the one sperm that made each individual to the one sperm that created each parent--not to mention the change of each particular egg--and run it back through out history to realize it is STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for any of us to be here.

"Move along . . . nothing to see here."

--J.D.