The 90% of microbial DNA in our DNA

[cypress]

The problem is that it seems you're equivocating "chance" as in randomly picked from the set of all possibilities with "chance" as in the result of natural processes. Hoyle's Fallacy is a fallacy for that reason.

 

Not at all. I use chance alone to distinguish the mechanism from other proposals that include various self or guided ordering mechanisms. Hoyle's numbers are based on this assumption of chance and chemic properties of the direct constituents alone. Hoyle chose the method he did to make it a demonstrate the absurdity of claiming life arose by chance alone. You seem to find it fallacious because you reject the premise outright without even evaluating his analysis.

 

It seems odd that you are arguing this since we both agree chance alone is a non-starter.

 

I'd have to say yes, and furthermore that this chance is roughly the same as the chance that the universe is infinite (we don't yet know). But even with an infinite universe, it would be silly to expect to actually find an example of life arising by pure chance in a single step, rather than one via a several step process that includes chance and non-chance components.

 

Wow I am surprised you put any faith at all in such odds. But in any case these analyses are combinatorial probabilities that do not require life in one step. So it is not necessary to stipulate life in one step for these analyses.

 

So going back to irreducible complexity as an argument? You are aware that even for multienzyme (most prominently tryptophan synthase) complexes astonishingly still examples exist where there are stepwise changes in affinity of the subunits? That it is possible in a number of cases to trace down the development of such a complex into an operon?

 

The observation that some biological systems cease one or more primary functions if certain key components are removed is a good and valid argument, but it is not what I intended just now. Instead I note that suggesting that many short peptides have weak catalytic activity is irrelevant cherry picking since the vast majority of biological systems require proteins altogether different from this example. One the whole fewer than one in 10^74 protein sequences greater than 150 units are functional and the vast majority of proteins are longer than 150 units. I am also aware that there are examples of short stepwise pathways from a weakly functional enzyme to a specialized enzyme but only if a mind (the researcher) specifically constructs the weak enzyme. I consider this cherry picking as well.

 

Do you really want to argue that everything we see now is just as it ever was and that the similarities and differences that are phylogentically traceable are just so designed?

Wow. The designer had a heck load of time on his hands.

 

lol, Please don't mischaracterize my position. I accept that change and diversification has occurred over time, I question how the changes occurred given that current evolutionary processes have not been observed to generate such change in a timeframe that would be required to be consistent with the geologic record. I think we need to throw the current proposals in the dustbin and find the actual processes involved.

[Mr Skeptic]

Wow I am surprised you put any faith at all in such odds.

 

Personally, I don't think odds of about 50% are all that low.

 

But in any case these analyses are combinatorial probabilities that do not require life in one step. So it is not necessary to stipulate life in one step for these analyses.

 

Which makes us wonder, why then did you bring up this red herring in the first place?

[cypress]

Personally, I don't think odds of about 50% are all that low.

 

I would ask you to explain that number but it is so ridiculous and unsupportable I won't bother. I doubt even you accept that number since after you answered that you thought there was a reasonable probability that life from non-life occurred by random chemic processes alone you then said it likely included non-chance components.

 

Which makes us wonder, why then did you bring up this red herring in the first place?

 

Just because a hypothetical process includes multiple steps does not change the fundamentals. The analysis is unchanged by me correcting an error in the your and Sisyphus' argument. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the details of these analyses. Relevance is unchanged.

[pioneer]

Besides being a source of genetic information, the DNA, as a whole, can also be viewed as molecular configuration in contact with water. An analogy is an enzyme. An enzyme has a rather large surface area in contact with water but concentrates its activity at an active site. The sum of this larger surface area of the enzymes has an impact of its smaller active zone. It is possible the bacterial DNA is the configurational potential needed for the activity of the human DNA. One way to look at this is life has basic tasks such as digestion, metabolism, reproduction, etc. The details may change but the fundamentals remain.

Edited August 1, 2010 by pioneer

[kitkat]

The problem isn't that it's an analogy, it's that it's a fallacious one.

 

And to answer your question, yes, I do think there is a "reasonable" probability, though treating the rise of life as one event and calling the processes "random" are both misleading. And no, I don't know exactly how it occurred. Nobody does. We have some plausible hypotheses about many of the steps. An appeal to ignorance would be suggesting that because we don't know what happened, X must have happened. I'm not doing that.

 

 

Arising by chance through an undirected process of random mutations, descent with modification is exactly what evolutionists claim. Of course I don't believe the first part since the verdict is still out and I am still not sure about it being totally "undirected"

[Sisyphus]

Arising by chance through an undirected process of random mutations, descent with modification is exactly what evolutionists claim. Of course I don't believe the first part since the verdict is still out and I am still not sure about it being totally "undirected"

 

I clarified what I meant by that in post #23. Calling it "random" implies it is magically assembled from nothing, just by pure chance. In fact, it would be the result of natural processes. You should also remember that evolution and abiogenesis are two different topics. Abiogenesis is how life began, and it's not well understood. Evolution is how life changes once it already exists, and it is far better understood.

[Mr Skeptic]

I would ask you to explain that number but it is so ridiculous and unsupportable I won't bother. I doubt even you accept that number since after you answered that you thought there was a reasonable probability that life from non-life occurred by random chemic processes alone you then said it likely included non-chance components.

 

It is a rough estimate of the probability that the universe is infinite (we don't yet know). Given an infinite universe, now calculate the chance that at least one life form formed by a process with a probability to occur of 1 in 10^41,000 (your numbers): [math]Probability = 1 - (1 - 10^{-41,000})^{\infty} = 1 - 0 = 1[/math]. On average you would expect there to be [math]10^{-41,000} \infty = \infty[/math] life forms forming by said method. So the probability that some life formed by such an unlikely method is the same as the probability that the universe is infinite -- which I estimated at ~50% -- and the number of such life that would exist in that case would be inifinte. Feel free to look up more accurate numbers, but know that they will be much closer to 50% than you will be comfortable with. The numbers may instead refer to the curvature of the universe; in that case the closed universe is finite and the flat and open are infinite.

 

The reason I would not expect to ever find such life forms is that our observable universe is quite finite due to the expansion of space, and in any case if we did find a life form it would most likely have been formed by a much more likely method, such as one of the current theories of abiogenesis.

[cypress]

my response to this is here.

 

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