Entropy contradict Evolution (testimony, Creator, Earth, contradiction, creation)

[kbc_1963]

Mr_Spinkles asked:
where did you come up with these supposed "odds"? Can you back up this claim?

Tho It was not my post being answered here, I just happen to have much in the way of numbers so here you go, I have much more stuff dealing with the odds in another post in the debate forum.

It seems strange when I see people questioning the odds of something without a serious look at the variables. Many people do nothing but figure the odds everyday for various things in life.
"That organic evolution could account for the complex forms of life in the past and the present has long since been abandoned by men who grasp the importance of the DNA genetic code."

It was Dr. Emile Borel who first formulated the basic Law of Probability which states that the occurrence of an event where the chances are beyond 1 chance in 1050(the 200th power is used for scientific calculations), is an event which we can state with certainty will never happen, regardless of the time allotted or how many opportunities could exist for the event to take place.(Emile Borel, Probabilities and Life, Dover 1962, chapters 1-3) The mathematical probability of a single living cell arising spontaneously has been calculated over and over again by evolutionary scientists and they have been unable to come up with a figure which falls under Borel's upper limit!

Walter Bradley and Charles Thaxton (authors of The Mystery of Life's Origins: Reassessing Current Theories) had this to say about probability and the origin of a protein after outlining a number of arguments against an evolutionary origin of the same:

The problem of assembling the amino acid building blocks into functional protein can also be illustrated using probability and statistics. To simplify the problem, one may assume the probability of getting an L-amino acid (versus a D-amino acid) to be 50 percent and the probability of joining two such amino acids with a peptide bond to also be 50 percent. The probability of getting the right amino acid in a particular position may be assumed to be 5 percent, assuming equal concentration of all twenty amino acids in the pre biotic soup. The first two assumptions are realistic, while the third would be too low for some amino acids and to high for others. Neglecting the problem of reactions with non-amino acid chemical species, the probability of getting everything right in placing one amino acid would be 0.5 x 0.5 x .05 = .0125. The probability of properly assembling N such amino acids would be .0125 x .0125 x ...continued for N terms of .0125. If a functional protein had one hundred active sights, the probability of getting a proper assembly would be .0125 multiplied times itself one hundred times, or 4.9 x 10191. Such improbabilities have led essentially all scientists who work in the field to reject random, accidental assembly or fortuitous good luck as an explanation for how life began. If we assume that all carbon on earth exists in the form of amino acids and that amino acids are allowed to chemically react at the maximum possible rate of 1012 /s for one billion years (the greatest possible time between the cooling of the earth and the appearance of life), we must still conclude that it is incredibly improbable (~1065) that even one functional protein would be made, as H.P. Yockey has pointed out. (H.P. Yockey, "A Calculation of the Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis by Information Theory,"Journal of Theoretical Biology 67(1981)

Francis Crick, the man who shared the Nobel Prize in 1962 with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins for their discovery of the molecular structure of DNA had this to say about probability factors and protein synthesis:

" To produce this miracle of molecular construction all the cell need do is to string together the amino acids (which make up the polypeptide chain) in the correct order. This is a complicated biochemical process, a molecular assembly line, using instructions in the form of a nucleic acid tape (the so-called messenger RNA). Here we need only ask, how many possible proteins are there? If a particular amino acid sequence was selected by chance, how rare of an event would that be?
This is an easy exercise in combinatorials. Suppose the chain is about two hundred amino acids long; this is , if anything, rather less than the average length of proteins of all types. Since we have just twenty possibilities at each place, the number of possibilities is twenty multiplied by itself some two hundred times. This is conveniently written 20 200, that is a one followed by 260 zeros! This number is quite beyond our everyday comprehension. For comparison, consider the number of fundamental particles (atoms, speaking loosely) in the entire visible universe, not just in our own galaxy with its 1011 stars, but in all the billions of galaxies, out to the limits of observable space. This number, which is estimated to be 1080, is quite paltry by comparison to 10260. Moreover, we have only considered a polypeptide chain of a rather modest length. Had we considered longer ones as well, the figure would have been even more immense.(Life Itself, its origin and nature, Francis Crick, 1981, pp 51-52)

[Runt]

When I was in high school my chemistry teacher would read little scientific stories to us every Friday. Once, she read a story about the probability of being born. It calculated the chance of any one person being born, and the odds, when they were presented, make each and every one of us HIGHLY UNLIKELY to have been able to be conceived, let alone to survive until birth.

I tried to find the story on the internet, but couldn't. I did, however, find some site that said the odds of being born are 1 to 130,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. I am not sure how accurate that is, but I do remember that it was some kind of outrageous number like that that the story itself calculated.


So why is it so difficult to believe in evolution when the odds against something we all KNOW has occured--our own births-- are so incredibly piled AGAINST us? If we have all been born despite the odds piled against us, then evolution is certainly possible despite the odds against it.


I don't believe in a God, but I think those of you who do should consider that perhaps the reason evolution exists despite the odds against it are that your God played a part in MAKING it possible.

[Mr Spinkles]

If we assume that all carbon on earth exists in the form of amino acids and that amino acids are allowed to chemically react at the maximum possible rate of 1012 /s for one billion years (the greatest possible time between the cooling of the earth and the appearance of life), we must still conclude that it is incredibly improbable (~1065) that even one functional protein would be made, as H.P. Yockey has pointed out.

What exactly was the probability of a protein being made on earth in one billion years--are the odds "10 to the 1065th power to one"? I'm looking for a number.

In the quote you used from H.P. Yockey, he appears to concede that biogenesis is improbable, and that our knowledge of the mechanisms by which this occurred is limited....but does he really think evolution doesn't happen? You didn't take that quote out of context by any chance, did you....

If Emile Borel's findings were truly scientific, I would think she would have published a peer-reviewed paper...not a book. Is she Christian? Just curious.

Runt made a pretty good point. Before the fact, the odds of many events happening are astronomically small...but after the fact, the odds of it happening are 1/1. Here is an interesting quote I found at http://www.skepdic.com/intelligentdesign.html :

... rarity by itself shouldn't necessarily be evidence of anything. When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable. --John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences

Also, I found:

...the odds against DNA assembling by chance are [10 to the 40,000th power] to one [according to Fred Hoyle, Evolution from Space,1981]. This is true, but highly misleading. DNA did not assemble purely by chance. It assembled by a combination of chance and the laws of physics. Without the laws of physics as we know them, life on earth as we know it would not have evolved in the short span of six billion years. The nuclear force was needed to bind protons and neutrons in the nuclei of atoms; electromagnetism was needed to keep atoms and molecules together; and gravity was needed to keep the resulting ingredients for life stuck to the surface of the earth.
--Victor J. Stenger, emphasis added

[Mr Spinkles]

Also, kbc, I encourage you to read this (relatively short) article at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

And here's an interesting article about recent developments in recreating abiogenesis in the lab, in which self-replicating molecules were created: http://w3.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/1990/may09/23124.html

[(Q)]

Hadeka

It is the understanding of the subject matter (entropy) in which your argument is flawed, and clearly your understanding is flawed, hence your argument is moot.

[Mr Spinkles]

Hmmm....kbc never did answer my question.

[painted wolf]

some fun odds...

Odds of a meteor landing on your house: 182,138,880,000,000 to 1
From: http://www.funny2.com/odds.htm

odds on having naturaly occuring identical Quintuplits 8,000,000,000 to 1
http://main.uab.edu/show.asp?durki=66358

wa:do

[Zero Faith]

Here's a quick summary of how Godless creation slips by Thermodynamics; I'm not attempting to explain the creation of the Universe, just how it avoids violating thermodynamics.

The Big Bang

There are a number of hypotheses describing the creation of the Universe; the truth is that scientists do not know how the Universe came to be. Two possibilities to explain the creation of the Universe without violating the First Law of Thermodynamics:

1) The Universe is cyclical: The Universe expands for a set period of time, then slows down and contracts until it collapses in upon itself, creates a singularity, then explodes outwards to repeat the process. Energy (for matter is merely another form of energy) is never created or destroyed, it merely changes form between periods of expansion and contraction. Astronomers, however, have recently suggested that the Universe will continue expanding until it burns itself out, thus ruling out a cyclical phenomenon.

2) Creation out of Nothing (Creation Ex Nihilo): Energy cannot be created on its own, but energy and anti-energy (in the form of antiparticles) DO spontaneously form out of nothingless (they're called vacuum particles). Since they are a particle (+1) and an antiparticle (-1), they cancel out to equal zero -- thus conserving energy. However, vacuum particles quickly find each other and recombine, cancelling each other out and disappearing again. There are a number of scenarios (Hawking can explain them better) that employ this phenomenon in explaining the creation of a Universe out of nothing. Basically, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle demands infinite energy fluctuations when you have no time (ie. before the Big Bang), so this is where all our energy comes from - a positive whole lot, and a negative whole lot. The rapid expansion of the early Universe keeps the opposite halves of this vacuum fluctuation from recombining and annihilating each other.

These are hypotheses, but they do illustrate how a Universe could come to be without violating thermodynamics.

Since we are at zero time, and entropy is only concerned with time, the second law does not apply until we start moving forward.

After The Big Bang

So, we have our energy, which explains the Big Bang. Entropy is generally poorly understood; one way of looking at it is that any system desires the lowest energy state it can obtain after taking everything into account (its surroundings, other systems it can interact with, etc). Since ALL matter attracts ALL other matter gravitationally, the gravitational force would pull everything together into a tight ball -- that would be the state of highest entropy. But the energy created during the Big Bang is forcing everything outwards. We have a conflict.

Some particles group together randomly, but as a whole they're too energetic and spread out to collapse into one giant mass. These smaller, random groupings (think eddies in a fog bank) increase their gravitational pull as more particles fall in, which in turn makes them bigger. It's a vicious cycle; more particles equals more gravity equals more particles. These clumps swept through the early Universe, pulling more matter in: the first stars.

We get the rest of our matter through nuclear reactions at the centers of stars. Nuclear fusion occurs under high pressures and temperatures, and gravity pulling matter together will give you both. So far, nothing has violated thermodynamics, and our stars flare to life. Hydrogen atoms slam together to make helium, helium atoms combine into beryllium, beryllium atoms into oxygen, and so on, creating all the necessary building blocks of reality and spewing them out when the stars explode at death. Every atom in your body once existed at the center of a massive, hot star.

Gravity gets to work again, pulling these new, larger particles together into more clumps (planets). And we're up to everything except life.

Abiogenesis and Evolution

This is the easiest one -- the laws of thermodynamics simply do not apply at all. Why? Because thermodynamics only applies to closed systems; in other words, systems that are neither gaining nor losing energy. Thus far, we've been discussing the Universe as a whole, which is a closed system. When we zoom in to look at Earth, however, we're now looking at an open system -- our sun provides a constant stream of energy to Earth.

The laws of thermodynamics can be (and regularly are) violated when energy is added to the system being studied. Endothermic reactions are all about adding heat energy to a reaction to 'go upstream' as far as entropy is concerned. Rechargable batteries work the same way; electricity from the wall socket is the energy being used to 'turn back the clock' on the chemical reactions responsible for battery power.

In other words, arguing that thermodynamics contradicts evolution is kind of like arguing that thermodynamics contradicts rechargable batteries.

And so we've reached the end. From Big Bang to human beings without violating a single law of thermodynamics.

[Zero Faith]

On the 'random' combinations of proteins and DNA strands:

The only thing required for evolution is survival of the fittest; in other words, some characteristic of the system that logically necessitates a direction for random mutation. Mutation cannot happen without reproduction, so random reproduction of any kind will evolve in such a way as to increase its likelihood to reproduce.

There are many molecules that reproduce themselves, and most of them are nowhere near as complicated as your average protein or DNA strand. It was these molecules that formed randomly and began reproducing, began evolving. Proteins and DNA came much, much later.

TalkOrigins has a fantastic article on abiogenesis right here.

[(Q)]

The only thing required for evolution is survival of the fittest

Incorrect. Evolution also requires the generation of diversity, a random process as well as a 'culling' of the fittest.