A simple case for intelligent design

[ecco]

The absolute minimum number of tries it would take a supercomputer spitting out 26 random English characters at a time to produce abcedfghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz is ONE.

Yay! I'm impressed!

Now ask yourself a math question, such as 2+3=X, then throw a pair of dice against the wall and accept the numbers you roll ONCE as the answer. Do you see my point here relating to abiogenesis, speciation, fully-formed complex eyes and morphology, etc.?

No, I do not see your point.

I do see that once again you are trying to create an analogy. Like your other analogies, it is terribly flawed. Why do you think anything happened ONCE? Nothing in nature happened ONCE! If I roll a single di the correct answer will statistically come up once in every six tries. If I throw the di 1,000 times, 5 will statistically come up 166 times.


I see you've given up trying to convince anyone that monkeys could type Shakespeare. I hope you understand that nature doesn't work that way.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I didn't forget to take a class, I had statistics for my Bachelor's and my Master's. Statistics and statistics manipulation should be at the fore of classroom learning IMHO, as statistics (and statistic cherry picking) are vital to better understanding law, forensics, intelligence-led policing, politics and propaganda, media advertising, biology, phylogeny, etc., etc.

I would not have guessed you had any statistics based on your posts here.

Here's what you're laying out before me:

1) I don't understand statistics
2) I propose raising the odds to the 32nd power for 32 separate iterations of the same evolutionary trait
3) You feel important factors modify the odds, and rightly so, e.g., easy to evolve something over and again (that is circular reasoning on your part, since you accept mechanistic and not theistic evolution as axiomatic, but okay) and I'll add to your assumption natural selection, enhanced survivability (despite claims the thing becomes vestigial!), etc.

You certainly do not understand what is required to calculate the probabilities, but seem to think it is just raising a number to a power.

I'm willing to evaluate the odds, I learned something new this week--no skeptic at this forum will say anything but "incalcuable odds" or "your odds are creation bs" or "you are stacking the odds, man"!

Does it make it sound more rational too you to label the mathematician that explained the reasons for the incalculable odds as a skeptic instead of the more honest answer of a guy with a PhD in math gave me sound reasons to recognize the errors I was making?

If I take your factors into account

I do not recall supplying any factors.

, and reduce the numbers vastly, from X^32 to X^16,

Pretend the numbers are whatever you want. It does not really matter. You are going to reject valid points anyway.

do you see we are dealing with laws of large numbers?

I see you are trying to deal with large numbers, but that evolution is not, has been explained to you.

If I accept odds of 10^50 as technically null, impossible, do you understand I see X^32 as possible, but highly unlikely?

Given the information about it that you have generated from thin air, I accept that X^32 represents a probability that an event would be unlikely. Of course, you have not shown an event related to anything, so it is meaningless.

That is, I'm open-minded, especially as I better understand evolution, since all learning should tend toward open-minded behavior?

You have not learned anything that I can see. You willfully ignore what others tell you. You willfully ignore evidence. You are basically calling everyone that is trying to explain this all to you, liars.

As to your "open mind", I do not see that either. You are attempting to appear more receptive, but an open mind does not necessarily follow that.

Now, what is the "X"? Can you name ten body structures at any level from genetic to whole systems necessitated to evolve simultaneously with a cecal appendix, 32 separate times?

What is a genetic body structure? A chromosome? The nucleus? I am not going to bother. Make up your own.

This is 10^32 odds: 1:1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

This is 10^16 odds: 1:10,000,000,000,000,000

More meaningless numbers. Good. I was afraid I had seen the last of them.

I want you to see that I'm willing to VASTLY, conservatively fix my odds, as I understand them. I want you keenly to understand why some people see some elements at play as just so stories.

Fixing this means that your numbers were not real to begin with and not based on the evidence. So you are back to where you were, willfully using probabilities that have been refuted.

X includes (positive and negative):

*Beneficial mutations, no harmful ones, create a vestigial appendix

Natural selection created the vestigial appendix.

*Colocated systems work with the cecal appendix

Bacteria occupy the appendix.

*Evolution is powerful, and clearly includes rapid speciation

You have offered no evidence for me to support or deny this. The theory of evolution and the evidence does not support the claim that species are instantaneously derived, fully formed.

*Systems evolve to trigger release of appendix bacteria as appropriate

What system? What evidence?

*Etc.

Let's go with your side, and make X less than 1, much less than 1, a certainty!

Odds of 32 different iterations: 1:10,000,000

More numbers without meaning. You're good at this.

Now, we need only 10,000,000 planets in the universe with seafloor vents during their Hadean periods to spring abiogenesis (a mathematical certainty, I'll say, for those planets) and we got it right 32 times. Certainly if we push aside Fermi's paradox, Great Filter issues, Earthocentric issues, it works.

When did we go off planet? You are making vast leaps. And without your parachute again.

It's still unlikely it happened on Earth.

You have a lot of evidence to explain and little time to do it.

While I can cite other issues I have when I think about evolution, I can say from a more informed place--since you obliged me by challenging my assumptions and blinders, that I'm still on track.

Sure you are.

We're both Christians, can we just agree on Theistic Evolution, and conclude?

I cannot agree to something in science that has no evidence to support it. My belief has nothing to do with it and I am not going to agree with someone just because they happen to be Christian. That would be false witness.

I would not agree with any of the myriad speculation and circular reasoning you have used to arrive right back where your religious agenda started you.

 

[ecco]

Huh? I'm a Christian. The first Bible words are "In the beginning, God created..." aka, "Before the BB singularity/Planck time, God existed, then created..."

I deny God did nothing, there were already angels, and for all we know another universe, aka the theorized multiverse, quantum verse, etc.

I was using eternity as a time frame because many Christians say God has existed for Eternity. So now it seems you are saying God has only exist since just before our universe. OK. If we use the age of our universe, in 5 trillion days He spent 6 making our universe and A&E and animals...and, some angels and some other universes (maybe). Not very productive. Especially when you consider that one of those angels became His worst enemy (Satan) and A&E really messed up (as He programmed them to).

You are being, I think, supercilious, not to me, to God!

Not at all. I'm just bringing up things you probably want to ignore.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Framing what I believe in the proper context of all you said, and frankly, I agree with you:

"I believe I have strong evidence for why God's existence through Jesus Christ is evident, to me, if not to others."

"I believe wholeheartedly in Bible inspiration, since I see keenly through what others cite as moral failings and contradictions, and since following Bible practice has led to immense blessing."

I agree that you believe it. I still continue to feel very confident that you do not.

"We're both Christians, but if neither or one of us isn't, it's unfair to add that burden to the discussion of evolution and design, and I know plenty of born-again "true" Christians who are wrong on any number of issues, so again, that's irrelevant. Thankfully, we can discuss science and/or religion without bias or fear, hopefully."

This just looks like a back-handed attempt to claim I am not a "true" Christian, because a "true" Christian would deify the Bible and believe anything another claiming to be Christian says, even if it defies reason and is against the evidence.

How do you know who is a Christian and who is not? I bet you believe you know how. Again, I remain extremely confident that you do not know.

I think the Bible is inspiring, but I know it is not without error. I know a lot of people try to rationalize those errors out of existence from fear and ignorance.

You mentioned you are a Christian. We need to therefore love one another, Christ's command, and how we frame our discussion is a witness to others on the forum (albeit a "legal" witness that is not the kind of proselytizing blocked on RF).

How one side of this discussion was framed was certainly a witness statement for me. I hope that in time, you will find the means to overcome your bias and give a serious review to the science and perhaps gain some real understanding that is not tainted by an all consuming desire that your religious views be infallible.

I have been shooting from the hip and was self-defensive previously, regarding mechanistic evolution, and have no excuse for doing so, not even having 20 skeptics post against me daily around these parts.

The reason that several people, including those that have indicated they are educated and practiced in science, is that:
1. you make claims without support of logic, theory or evidence;
2. you ignore the information they provide you;
3. you use hyperbole and speculation as if they were validated facts;
4. you show a propensity for not understanding what you claim you understand.

You may be well meaning and think you are doing everything right, but the holes in your arguments make Swiss cheese envious.

Let's move forward--and based on your response to my post today regarding evaluating odds, perhaps we can conclude?

I hope that you do move forward and make a serious effort to learn from valid sources. I hope you can find the patience that will require, because it is going to take time. Like living things and systems in living things. Understanding does not spring fully formed into existence.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It is an OSTRICH.

Somebody wrote "For example, I could look at a modern flightless bird, but assume it could fly, if I only saw its wings or a skeleton with wings."

Hmmm.... Who was that, I wonder...

You beat me to it. I was just thinking of looking for a photo of a ratite skeleton.

 

[Subduction Zone]

@BilliardsBall , perhaps you should take a scientific approach to this. What should we observe in the fossil record if creationism is true and why? No creationist seems to be willing to answer this questin. I will tell you what we would expect to see if evolution were correct. We would see exactly what we have seen. Abundant marine fossils that preserve the evolution of almost all marine life once hard body parts exist. Rare terrestrial fossils all that support the theory of evolution even though there are countless chances of it being shown to be wrong. When it comes to feathers those are very rare finds, but again what we see supports evolution from mere wisps to multi "haired" plumes, to ordered feathers and last of all aerodynamic ones. All of these can be observed in the record. And in the right order. We see that with all sorts of life. We do not see more developed life before the predecessors exist. There are many different possible "Precambrian Bunny Rabbits" and they are simply not to be found.

Instead of making excuses one should look at the evidence. Lastly bad "odds arguments" are no evidence. Every one that I have seen by creationists are always based upon a false premise making the math involved totally worthless. There is a very very good reason that over 99% of the scientists that study in this field accept this theory and only those that make easily refuted arguments oppose it.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I don't think it's that he's forgotten, rather he's just doing what most internet creationists do.....demand to see X, and after X is shown do everything you can to avoid acknowledging that X exists.

IOW, he didn't ask his question in good faith and was instead trying to "stump the evolutionist".

I agree. He saw it. His failure to recognize your example is likely due to the time he is spending trying to rationalize it away through speculation and further unsupported claims or to wait long enough that it is no longer on the same page.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

@BilliardsBall , perhaps you should take a scientific approach to this. What should we observe in the fossil record if creationism is true and why? No creationist seems to be willing to answer this questin. I will tell you what we would expect to see if evolution were correct. We would see exactly what we have seen. Abundant marine fossils that preserve the evolution of almost all marine life once hard body parts exist. Rare terrestrial fossils all that support the theory of evolution even though there are countless chances of it being shown to be wrong. When it comes to feathers those are very rare finds, but again what we see supports evolution from mere wisps to multi "haired" plumes, to ordered feathers and last of all aerodynamic ones. All of these can be observed in the record. And in the right order. We see that with all sorts of life. We do not see more developed life before the predecessors exist. There are many different possible "Precambrian Bunny Rabbits" and they are simply not to be found.

Instead of making excuses one should look at the evidence. Lastly bad "odds arguments" are no evidence. Every one that I have seen by creationists are always based upon a false premise making the math involved totally worthless. There is a very very good reason that over 99% of the scientists that study in this field accept this theory and only those that make easily refuted arguments oppose it.

Several clergy tried to do something similar with regard to the flood to what you propose here in regards to creation. It turned out to be a good thing. It lead to the foundation of geology as a science and showed that the earth was billions of years old. And no flood.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Amazing stuff - I was unaware that bacteria are now considered fluids and that their movements require neurological and multiple systems also moving/catalyzing - even at a level devoid of life! Amazing insights!

I pulled a copy of the same paper you found. I completely missed the fluidic (I got the word from Star Trek Voyager) conversion of bacteria.

But I note that did not explain why none of the papers (at least one of them from which you must have gleaned your appendix information) even contained the word "enzyme" even as they described the function of the appendix.

He likes to throw in words, ideas and concpets unexpectedly and inexplicably. One minute he is talking about odds and the next we are off planet and talking about transposons.

I would also like to learn more about this movement and catalysis - what is moving and what needs to be catalyzed for fluid bacteria to re-colonize the gut after a bout of diarrhea. I am especially intrigued about this prior-to-life level that you speak of - is that the spirit realm? Can't wait to see the evidence!

Do not use the brown catalyst. I cannot wait either. I'll make the popcorn.

Having taught college genetics for about 6 years, yes, yes I am. Not sure what that has to do with enzymes or bacteria being fluid or the Spirit realm.

Genetics! Very nice. We could use that expertise here.

Maybe it is that the diarrhea is heritable and runs in his genes.

 

[tas8831]

I pulled a copy of the same paper you found. I completely missed the fluidic (I got the word from Star Trek Voyager) conversion of bacteria.

Heard that there is going to be a Picard spin-off series...

He likes to throw in words, ideas and concpets unexpectedly and inexplicably. One minute he is talking about odds and the next we are off planet and talking about transposons.

Antic #62-A of the internet creationist bag-o-trix.

Do not use the brown catalyst. I cannot wait either. I'll make the popcorn.

I suspect that antic #11-B will be invoked - Move on to a new topic.

Genetics! Very nice. We could use that expertise here.

I don't consider myself an expert, but I can readily tell when someone knows less than I do on the subject!

Maybe it is that the diarrhea is heritable and runs in his genes.

One would hope...

 

[BilliardsBall]

A valid source for such a claim is needed.

Smith, Heather F., William Parker, Sanet H. Kotze, Michel Laurin. 2013. Multiple independent appearances of the cecal appendix in mammalian evolution and an investigation of related ecological and anatomical factors. Comptes Rendus Palevol, 16 pages. DOI:10.1016/j.crpv.2012.12.001

 

[BilliardsBall]

@BilliardsBall , perhaps you should take a scientific approach to this. What should we observe in the fossil record if creationism is true and why? No creationist seems to be willing to answer this questin. I will tell you what we would expect to see if evolution were correct. We would see exactly what we have seen. Abundant marine fossils that preserve the evolution of almost all marine life once hard body parts exist. Rare terrestrial fossils all that support the theory of evolution even though there are countless chances of it being shown to be wrong. When it comes to feathers those are very rare finds, but again what we see supports evolution from mere wisps to multi "haired" plumes, to ordered feathers and last of all aerodynamic ones. All of these can be observed in the record. And in the right order. We see that with all sorts of life. We do not see more developed life before the predecessors exist. There are many different possible "Precambrian Bunny Rabbits" and they are simply not to be found.

Instead of making excuses one should look at the evidence. Lastly bad "odds arguments" are no evidence. Every one that I have seen by creationists are always based upon a false premise making the math involved totally worthless. There is a very very good reason that over 99% of the scientists that study in this field accept this theory and only those that make easily refuted arguments oppose it.

Why do you ask a question, then make a generalization, then a rhetorical reply? This is absurd on its face and shows you've never read one page of any leading creation site, one white paper, one proposal:

"What should we observe in the fossil record if creationism is true and why? No creationist seems to be willing to answer this question."

I've seen numerous proposals explaining diverse speciation, abundant marine life, etc.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Evidently, yes.

Why do you think this is a problem?

I made a detailed response to this question, to Dan from Smithville.

 

[BilliardsBall]

False. All it needs to do is select each step in the process provided each step provides an advantage over the previous step.

Take the evolution of the eye, for example. First, it was merely a small patch of light-sensitive cells. This then evolved to form a "cup", which could now also detect the direction of light. Eventually the cup became a chamber, allowing light to focus on the back of the chamber and increasing its ability to detect the direction of light. The chamber evolved to become filled with liquid which allowed the light to be further enhanced and protected the back of the chamber. Finally, an iris developed to form a kind of "lens" over the opening.

Each step is useful. At no point is it "half an eye". A gradual progression, through successively improving forms, leads to the latest "version" of that form. A wing is not the "end goal" of the process, it is simply the latest iteration of an evolutionary function slowly and successively improving upon independent motion.


Total nonsense.

My prior statement, "Natural selection should avoid parts that did not have all their components existing, in place, connected, and regulated because the parts would not work. Thus 100% of the right mutations (and none of the destructive ones) must happen simultaneously," also applies to the cup, the lens, the other parts you are just-so theorizing, regardless of the lack of forensic evidence for your just-so claims.

I'm traveling overseas, when I get back, happy to discuss more. Suggest you seriously ponder the odds statement I made to Dan from S.

 

[BilliardsBall]

I have a question.

Why would God create creatures that have wings that don't work?

I thought you were a skeptic thinker:

* Beauty
* Diversity
* Thermoregulation
* Mating calls
* 18 other reasons thinkers can conjecture, especially just-so-story evolutionists!

 

[BilliardsBall]

Do you ever consier that with very small quantities of C14, there can be measurement errors? And that, maybe, the amount of said error depends on the type of equipment?

Or that there are other, very minor sources of C14 (radiation from surrounding rock) that become dominant when the amounts are very small?

No, of course not.

Multiple times, in multiple specimens?

And for even one specimen, is anyone willing to consider the statistical significance of such a mistake against standard deviation of tolerable error?

Did you ever consider dating carboniferous life forms via neighboring geochronology is a mistake?

 

[BilliardsBall]

And, as has been explained to you several times, this isn't even close to the correct calculation. Mutation and selection *greatly* reduces the number of trials required to find (close to) optimal solutions. So the exponentials you use are *completely* inappropriate. I gave a specific scenario where I compared the one-shot, everything must fit perfectly, otherwise discard and start over', which is the basis of your calculation, and the evolutionary 'build up in pieces', adjusting what you already have to fit what promotes survival' scenario. The rates of finding even long sequences are dramatically different. The point is the the evolutionary scenarios tend to produce 'exponents' not of 32 or 16, but of 2 or 3.

We can, and many do, model evolutionary scenarios as methods for solving complicated problems.

So, let's be clear what our starting point is and what you want to be the ending point.

We know of species that only have *two* proteins. One is a serine protease, a digestive enzyme, and the other is a protein that when split increases its solubility. There is nothing magical about either: all that is required of the protease is that it divide proteins. All that is required of the other is that it undergo a conformation change upon cleavage that reduces its solubility. Both general types are in abundance in ALL organisms. And yes, their 'purpose' may have NOTHING to do with blood clotting in the ancestors.

This is another aspect of evolution that makes calculations very difficult to impossible: it is *common* for proteins and structures that evolved for one 'purpose' to be adapted to another just because they are there and work well enough. What this means, in this scenario, is that the precursors to blood clotting proteins may have nothing to do with the blood at all.

And, for example, what happens in lobsters is that one protein is inside of cells and the other is generally outside of them. When the lobster is injured, cells are split open and the two proteins come together, the protease acts on the soluble protein and makes it insoluble, which clots the area.

Because of the way evolution works, it is NOT required that all 32 proteins be produced simultaneously. ALL that is required initially is a two protein system that works well enough in an animal with low blood pressure. After *something* works, other systems can be co-opted to help out and make for a more complicated system that amplifies the signal, works in animals with higher blood pressure, etc.

READ MY POST before you reply.

I *greatly* allowed for trials, natural selection, etc. and reduced the given odds by trillions, making their impetus a mathematical certainly.

My post was regarding the odds of a cecal appendix evolving 32 separate times, not 30 proteins producing clotting.

Source: Smith, Heather F., William Parker, Sanet H. Kotze, Michel Laurin. 2013. Multiple independent appearances of the cecal appendix in mammalian evolution and an investigation of related ecological and anatomical factors. Comptes Rendus Palevol, 16 pages. DOI:10.1016/j.crpv.2012.12.001

I'm going on a break overseas today, when I get back, I might correspond with you further, if you actually read and digest my posts, first.

 

[BilliardsBall]

It is an OSTRICH.

Somebody wrote "For example, I could look at a modern flightless bird, but assume it could fly, if I only saw its wings or a skeleton with wings."

Hmmm.... Who was that, I wonder...

That is my point, precisely, you are using uniformitarian assumptions (this is a protowing skeleton). However, your assumption is wrong: the ostrich has an vestigial wing, or is it ancillary? You follow what I'm saying here?

 

[tas8831]

I am going to be busy this weekend - Dan handled all these many posts splendidly, but I cannot resist tossing in my 2 cents...

Are there modern flightless birds with fully formed wings?

Why do creationists use terms like "fully formed" when talking about fossils?
What do you even mean? What would a half-formed wing look like?

Are you comfortable with going by partial skeletal remains and occasional feathers to say, "proto wing, wing, limb, vestigial appendage"?

As an aside, you do know that the foundation of your belief system is largely fragmentary, right?

If you are comfortable, how is that phylogeny is constantly changing? Are all phylogenics experts in current agreement?

When you say changing, to what extent are you talking about?
As one that has published in the field of phylogenetics, to include a couple of papers confirming a 'change' in the phylogenetic tree of a group of primates, I am comfortable knowing that as sufficient data is uncovered, requisite changes are made, as opposed to being ignored in favor of preserving ancient dogma.
The 'changes' that we see are minor - one species swaps places within the same family, or is moved to a different sub-genus, for example, not one taxon being moved to a new order. These do not "disprove" the overall tree, not even close.

If all the info coded in DNA got there via evolution as you wrote, do you feel problems of chirality, abiogenesis, whether it was an RNA-world at the time of abiogenesis, etc. have been solved?

Evolution is not involved in abiogenesis (chirality and such are abiogenesis issues), but creationists do love to conflate ad nauseum.

I think Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan and others were/are super-intelligent people, to be admired, to be listened to. When people of this caliber say/have said "space seed", "alien encoding", "don't know" or even "impossible via mechanistic only!" do you scoff?

Can you cite them saying that? Or will this be, for example, the usual creationist misrepresentation of the Dawkins interview?

 

[tas8831]

That is my point, precisely, you are using uniformitarian assumptions (this is a protowing skeleton). However, your assumption is wrong: the ostrich has an vestigial wing, or is it ancillary? You follow what I'm saying here?

LOL!

Right -

It is an OSTRICH.

Somebody wrote "For example, I could look at a modern flightless bird, but assume it could fly, if I only saw its wings or a skeleton with wings."

Hmmm.... Who was that, I wonder...​

On another forum, a few years ago, there was this creationist computer tech guy who fancied himself the greatest expert on all science - yes, he was wrong about almost everything. And we enjoyed calling him out.
At one point, when he was leaving the forum, he tried to get 'the last laugh' - he declared that all those times we had proved him wrong, he wasn't actually wrong, he just wrote the wrong things on purpose so that we would correct him and that this somehow made US look bad. It didn't.

Food for thought.