lee_merrill

It is indeed a bit of a handwave, it's not very formal, yet it does the job! I have yet to have someone show me my error on this (though I have made corrections along the way).

Which assumption, though, is questionable? Again, I must insist that you give me specifics.

Well, you said that any given RNA sequence can have a specific function! Now that's just not true, though it certainly does change the assumptions.

I agree that this prophecy is not so improbable, apparently God seems not to have scruples about predicting events that people would think could likely happen.

Regards,
Lee

whiskey the hedonist

1. That you scenario is at all descriptive of the origins of life.

2. That all of your chemicals must orginate at the same time.

3. That your reactions are not bounded by the laws of chemistry, but instead are equally likely to occur in all environments regardless of what reactions are occurring around them.

4. That your arbitrary set of chemicals is the only set that can create life, that the number of substitute chemicals in any given set is bounded by 10^3.

But most important is number one. If there exists an alternate theory of abiogenesis, you must refute it before you insist that yours is the only one. Of course, you have already stipulated that life did not originate in the way you describe, and I agree, but that does not address the question of whether life can spontaneously develop.

An alternate calculation exists <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html">here</a>. I predict, however, that you will stick to your calculation regardless of what you read there. In fact, I believe, based on our tyre discussion, that if I took a bunch of chemicals, put them in a test tube, and shook that test tube up to produce a paramecium, you would say: "See, abiogenesis isn't possible without an intelligent agent!"

I'm not saying that the Tyre prophecy is merely probable under your interpretation, lee. I'm saying that under your interpretation, if Tyre were the center of an intergalactic empire and the most powerful city in 7 galaxies, and every building in the original city were still standing and Tyre had never lost a military engagement, the prophecy would probably be fulfilled, because you are basing your interpretation on the inerrancy of the bible, and not on the words in it.

I'm saying that there is NO set of events, no matter how farfetched, that could possibly not fulfill that prophecy as you interpet it. It amounts to noticing a city named Tyre. That is not prophetic.

Using your rules, my interpretation of the babylon prophecy includes saddams reconstruction effort and movie sets. As I read the prophecy, that mere attempt destroys the prophecy. Why is your interpretation better than mine, aside from the fact that you believe the bible is inerrant?

Dryhad

I think lee's interpretation makes it logically impossible to reconstruct Babylon which makes the prophesy quite unremarkable, but I think this interpretation also undermines the intent of the prophesy. If an active attempt to rebuild Babylon was all that is required, this prophesy would be rather self defeating. A common theme with prophesies seems to be people try to avoid them being fulfilled but ultimately fail (I can't remember the number of Greek myths that start with an unfavourable prediction by the Oracle at Delphi and end with the fulfillment of said prediction despite all efforts by all characters concerned to prevent it). If Saddam's attempt to rebuild Babylon constitutes its rebuilding, then the prophesy is very boring and more to the point, the prophets responsible should have realised how easy it would be for someone to thwart their prophesy.

whiskey the hedonist

Well, it is a boring prophecy, but hardly easy to thwart. It took thousands of years and the invention of film. Maybe the prophets couldn't see far enough into the future to know how they would be thwarted, so they didn't put in the necessary caveats. But none-the-less, the prophecy, as I read it, is a failure, and I await an explanation of why my interpretation is wrong.

Naked Ape

His mind has changed quite a bit since July of 2004 when he stopped composing new theories and started decomposing. Funny that you seem to be such a fan, yet this little fact somehow escaped your attention. You are not very good with details, are you?

Perhaps you are operating under the delusion that Francis Crick was incapable of error, that everything that he uttered was accepted by all scientists? Sorry to say that this was and is not the case. Perhaps you want to imagine that he rejected the notion that life evolved in some yet to be specified way from the chemicals present on the early Earth. He didn't do that either.

However, if you wish to take all the thoughts embraced by Francis Crick as gospel, chew on these:Now, according to the standards of evidence and proof that you seem to be embracing, you must refute this, or accept it, after all Francis Crick said it.

Cheers,

Naked Ape

PS: I was wondering where you picked up this obtuse appologetic tangent, but a quick scan of the home of tangential obtuse appolgetics (Tektonics), turned up this on the "You may be a fundamentalist atheist if...." list:If you google for Crick and Panspermia, you will find that most of the links are to fundy whackjob websites (like Tektonics and Answers in Genesis), these loons love this as much as they misunderstand it. Here is a snippet from an article that appeared after his death:Lets see what old Frank had to say himself about you and your fundamentalist creationist ilk, shall we?
It really does not appear that dear Francis is on your side. Perhaps you would like to pick another dead scientist to prop up as a strawman in support of your magical viewpoint.

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

"That your scenario is at all descriptive of the origins of life."

Yes, that is the difficulty I see with this estimate too, so I will try and cook up another one.

"That all of your chemicals must orginate at the same time."

No, I am saying they have to be present all at the same time, and this is being most generous! It is most improbable that all the codons would be in the same soup at the same time, together, all over every planet in the universe, for billions of years.

"That your reactions are not bounded by the laws of chemistry, but instead are equally likely to occur in all environments regardless of what reactions are occurring around them."

Well, again, this is being most generous, and allowing that these chemicals could react without interference. Interference would of course make the generation of gene products less probable.

"That your arbitrary set of chemicals is the only set that can create life, that the number of substitute chemicals in any given set is bounded by 10^3."

Well, no, I allowed for all kinds of flexibility! Are you saying that life could come about without proteins? And how many completely different versions of a gene product have the same function? I think 1000 is again(!) being quite generous.

Well, let's see...

"However, inspection of the genome suggests that this could be reduced further to a minimal gene set of 256 proteins."

I said 250...

"The first protobiont/progenote would have been smaller still..."

Well, he needs to convince Hubert Yockey, I was using his estimate. And "smaller" is not a number, we need some more specific value.

"As to the claim that the sequences of proteins cannot be changed, again this is nonsense."

I agree, and put this in the estimate.

"I will use as an example the 'self-replicating' peptide from the Ghadiri group"...

Well, the problem here is that "Chemist Robert Shapiro has convincingly demonstrated that while undirected chemical processes can produce homopolymers under carefully controlled pristine laboratory conditions, such processes cannot generate these types of molecules under early Earth's conditions [Shapiro, "Monomer World", ISSOL 2002, pp. 173-176]. ... Instead, polymers with highly heterogeneous backbone structures would be produced--molecular entities that cannot function as self-replicators. Shapiro has shown this interference to be the case specifically for proteins, RNA, and peptide nucleic acids." (Rana and Ross, "Origins of Life," p. 117).

And these are all the molecule types that the article considers using, as far as I can tell. But let's grant all his points!

And then he says this about his chosen molecule: "The probability of generating this in successive random trials is (1/20)^32 or 1 chance in 4.29 x 10^40". But that's for these amino acids in any order! He left out the order, and it turns out that "RMKQLEEKVYELLSKVACLEYEVARLKKVGE" has 2 Rs, 5 Ks, 5 Ls, 6 Es, 4 Vs, 2 Ys, and 2 As. Thus the probability of this order is (2! x 5! x 5! x 6! x 4! x 2! x 2!) / 32!, or (2 x 120 x 120 x 720 x 24 x 2 x 2) / 32! or about 5.45 x 10^-24. This would, of course affect his conclusions! He can generate these molecules with the amino acids in any order in a week, we are told, so it would take 1.8 x 10^23 weeks to get his protein, or about 3.5 septillion years. Oops.

I guess I don't need to cook up another estimate, they are, it seems, hoist by their own petard...

Well, how so? I gave specific requirements that I would consider the minimum, in order for Babylon to be rebuilt:

"At least two blocks with a total of two miles of streets with houses along them, three temples similar to the ones we know were there once, if you wish me to define 'similar,' I would say as evaluated by at least 60% of the archaeologists who have published in Archaeology Review and who respond to a poll, where at least ten of them respond, and at least 1,000 inhabitants, all on the former site of Babylon, and I would include rebuilding similar walls to those the city had, with again, 'similar' being as stated above."

So this seems to me not to be logically impossible.

Well, let's not be silly, I only subscribe to Crick's conclusion that abiogenesis from a chemical soup is overwhelmingly improbable. In that area, he is speaking as a scientist, and speaking from his considerable understanding as a scientist, so that should carry some weight with the skeptics who respect informed scientific insights. I mentioned that I disagreed with his conclusion that aliens did it! So no, I don't consider Crick's statements all to be true.

Regards,
Lee

whiskey the hedonist

Okay, so you admit that your scenario is worthless.

As for your critique, he didn't "leave out the order". Order of generation isn't important to his scenario. Your critique is based on a false assumption. Thank you for playing, please try again.

Look, lee, it is quite simple: there exist people who generate statistically likely scenarios for the existence of life. Even if you defeat them all, one by one, you can't actually refute abiogenesis unless you can demonstrate through first principles that it cannot happen. To do so, you need to demonstrate that there is a neccesary pathway for the development of life and that this pathway is not physically possible without intelligent intervention.

But so far, you have failed, and admit you have failed, to demonstrate, even statistical unlikelihood. Hence, you are refuted by your own admission.

On babylon and tyre: And I gave DIFFERENT criteria. Why are yours better than mine?

Dryhad

The invention of film wasn't necessary to rebuild Babylon. The film doesn't contribute to the building at all. It merely creates an illusion of a completed city. If the film set was enough, then Babylon could have easily been rebuilt centuries ago. If it wasn't, then adding cameras doesn't change a thing.

whiskey the hedonist

My interpretation insists on the filming to add to the reality... although a really big theater set would do, I suppose. Not as well, but it would serve.

Hey, I'm just trying to play by Lee's rules, and interpreting each prophecy in such a way as to support my position regardless of semantic content. Don't blame me if it seems silly.

Remember, Lee has granted, already, that there is no concievable set of circumstances that would possibly negate the Tyre prophecy, so I think I should be allowed a little latitude here.

Dryhad

Oh, Lee's interpetation is just as silly. Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm picking on you just because I'm addressing you. It's just to me the spirit of the prophecy doesn't allow immitations held together by illusion (the film isn't really a rebuilding, because technically the finished city is on the other side of the screen) or failed attempts and more than it allows itself to be fulfilled by logical impossibilities and ad hoc reasoning. It would be very difficult to rebuild Babylon at this point in time, but it would not be impossible as lee suggests.