phlebas

To support my fellow mod who posted the same time I did:

I agree. Thia is more than capable of destroying this thread on his own without our help.

JB01

I agree. And the figure of merit here is billions of years, not just millions. And when you consider the fact that a more apt analogy would have trillions of such books being typed out simultaneously at any given time (almost all the metabolically innovative work of evolution was accomplished by microbes before the appearance of eukaryotes), the possibility looks more and more like a certainty.

MrDarwin

This is precisely why I have given Thiaoouba more than one opportunity to explain the quotation, how Eden reached his conclusion, and the context in which it was made. Otherwise, we can just assume that Thiaoouba has no interest in supporting even his own assertions--and so far has proven himself incapable of supporting them. As far as I can tell, Thiaoouba knows nothing about Prof. Eden or what he wrote aside from the quote, which for all we know is taken completely out of context.

BTW the Eden quotation dates back to 1967. I really have to wonder, if Eden is really saying what the quotation suggests, did he know much (if anything) about evolution, genetics, morphology, etc., and are the assumptions he made 35 years ago valid in light of what we've learned since then? But from what Thiaoouba has posted (or rather hasn't posted) it's clear he doesn't care about the quote beyond its sound bite value.

MrDarwin

Since Thiaoouba is reluctant (or perhaps just too lazy) to back up his claims, I got curious and did a bit of searching. It appears that Murray Eden wrote exactly one article regarding evolution, in 1967, and his conclusions in this one paper have been quoted by multitudes of creationists ever since. I haven't been able to find the original article online but according to <a href="http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/20hist12.htm" target="_blank">this website,</a>

And according to <a href="http://www.geocities.com/mtgriffith1/eye.htm" target="_blank"> this website,</a>

You can find more of Eden's stuff <a href="http://creationsafaris.com/epoi_c04.htm#ec04f11x" target="_blank">here</a> (too long to quote) and <a href="http://www.gospelcom.net/bcom/Resources/FacultyForum/TomShetler02.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.

Everybody feel free to comment, given the additional background and more specific claims.

(damn links)

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: MrDarwin ]</p>

Coragyps

!!!!
Convert alpha to beta??!!

!!!!!!

Damn E. coli get all the information! We don't get nothin'!

I'll look for that book at Texas Tech - don't hold your breath, though.

MrDarwin

Don't forget, these are all secondary sources so we don't know if he is being quoted accurately (although I'm not suggesting that Eden's article is a reliable primary source in the first place).

Meanwhile, anybody want to counter this claim:

perhaps by providing a list of known nucleotide mutations of the hemoglobin gene that don't kill the organism, or known single-nucleotide differences between functional hemoglobin genes of related species? (Eden seems to be suggesting, in fact, that all living organisms should have identical hemoglobin because the molecular does not permit any variation in its structure!)

And finally, a question for Thiaoouba: if we can show that Eden made an egregious error on such a basic claim, would that make you rethink any of the rest of his conclusions?

Daggah

"The chance emergence of man is like the probability of typing at random a meaningful library of one thousand volumes using the
following procedure: Begin with a meaningful phrase, retype it with a few mistakes, make it longer by adding letters; then examine the result to see if the new phrase is meaningful. Repeat this process until the library is complete."

In fact, depending on how often you examined the phrase, it wouldn't be too unlikely at all that you'd come up with something that made sense.

Cumulative selection can be an extremely powerful thing. What would be the odds that one could flip a coin 100 times and get all heads?

2^100. That's 1 in 1.2676506 x 10^30; i.e., not bloody likely.

Now, what if you stopped after every coin toss, and 'selected' among the results? If it's a head, the coin toss "survives." If it's not, it "dies." Then the flipping process - which is (effectively) random - continues.

Coragyps

I've read that there are about 100 different sequences, or better, single-base substitutions, in human hemoglobin among walking-around, living humans. Most have no effect on the carrier, hemoglobin S causes sickle-cell anemia, and HbC gives you a great deal of immunity to malaria (like sickle-cell trait does) but with minor ill-effects. I posted a piece on HbC <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=001535" target="_blank">here</a> back in December. One of the medical folk here may have something at hand about the other hundred.

Principia

Probability is a curse to science if wielded carelessly. By performing probabilistic analysis someone *inevitably* makes a simplifying assumption somewhere, and the solution is always interpreted without regard to it. (Take Dougie down in RRP, e.g.)

Say we start with a mole of ice. I will argue that the probability 6.022x10^23 molecules of H2O molecules can arrange themselves to form a crystal lattice is infinitessimally small, and thus its existence implies design. Consider the following thought experiment. Suppose each H2O molecule can assume one position out of 4 pi steradians (i.e. the probability that in space it has any particular orientation is 1/4/pi). Physics has clearly demonstrated that at above freezing temperature, H2O molecules rotate freely. Then, as we approach freezing temperature, the probability that all 6x10^23 molecules arrange themselves is strictly (1/4/pi)^(6x10^23). In other words, it is impossible.

Yet, we see ice crystals all the time.

Ok, so what did I miss? I missed the fact that H2O molecules *DO NOT* assume orientations *INDEPENDENT* of all others. H2O is polar, and thus is attracted to neighboring H2O molecules. The possible of orientations out of all others is thus narrowed significantly.

EDIT: The analogy is clear, IMO. The accumulation of mutations over time is not a strictly random process. Like how the polarity of H2O molecules favors crystal formation, natural selection favors those mutations which confer increased reproductive success.

SC

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: Scientiae ]</p>

Kosh

You'll let us know when that happens, right?