What are the Odds of Life evolving by chance alone?

[chadn737]

 

 

Not the same thing, like I said, you might get an organism that could evolve into complex life but it could not be a eukaryote. It would not be an eukaryote any more than a plesiosaur is a dolphin...

It might be similar in many ways but it would not be the same thing..

 

 

We are not talking about multicellularity. All eukaryotes are are organisms that possess nuclei and membrane bound organelles. There is absolutely no reason to believe that it is impossible that nuclei could not evolve twice. The nucleus is merely a molecular phenotype and as evolution has shown time and again, convergent evolution is quite common. If the nucleus evolved a second time independently, then you would have a distinct origin of the eukaryotes, but they would both be by definition eukaryotes. Homoplasy has long confounded the construction of phylogenetic trees and with genetic evidence, it has been shown that many old lineages were in fact polyphyletic, misclassified because of convergent evolution.

 

If evolution can evolve complex traits in multicellular organisms many times independently, then why not evolve molecular traits many times independently? If one lineage of eukaryotes went extinct, then you wouldn't know that it had happened.

 

So tell me why its impossible for eukaryotes to evolve multiple times?

Edited March 12, 2014 by chadn737

[Moontanman]

 

 

We are not talking about multicellularity. All eukaryotes are are organisms that possess nuclei and membrane bound organelles. There is absolutely no reason to believe that it is impossible that nuclei could not evolve twice. The nucleus is merely a molecular phenotype and as evolution has shown time and again, convergent evolution is quite common. If the nucleus evolved a second time independently, then you would have a distinct origin of the eukaryotes, but they would both be by definition eukaryotes. Homoplasy has long confounded the construction of phylogenetic trees and with genetic evidence, it has been shown that many old lineages were in fact polyphyletic, misclassified because of convergent evolution.

 

If evolution can evolve complex traits in multicellular organisms many times independently, then why not evolve molecular traits many times independently? If one lineage of eukaryotes went extinct, then you wouldn't know that it had happened.

 

So tell me why its impossible for eukaryotes to evolve multiple times?

 

 

Still the same reason i gave, similar is not the same, plesiosaurs are not dolphins, no matter how many times a land animal evolves into a sea creature it will never independently evolve into a dolphin... If all humans dropped dead tomorrow the great apes might evolve into another animal capable of the things we are but it would still not be human...

Even if a cell line similar to eukaryotes evolved it would still be genetically distinct from any extant eukaryotes, it could be similar but it would not be the same thing..

Edited March 12, 2014 by Moontanman

[Alan McDougall]

Prokaryotes were the only form of life on Earth for millions of years until more complicated eukaryotic cells came into being through the process of evolution

 

These one cellular organisms, were not simple, but more complex than anything we humans can create.

[overtone]

 

 

A dispassionate examination of the evidence. Life apparently evolved in the space of 100 to 300 million years. Yet it took a further 1.5 billion years to move from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. The difference in complexity between non-life and life is greater than that between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

The gain in complexity between prokaryotes and eukaryotes had to travel a much narrower path, due to the existence of long evolved and efficient prokaryotes competing and predating. The first life had a whole world to operate in, the first cellular life had free range. Even very inefficient, vulnerable, slow, kludge designs and modifications had plenty of room to be initially successful, to establish a base for refinement. Prokaryotes similarly had a wide arena of probability to begin with. Eukaryotes had to hit, by chance, a much smaller probability space.

[chadn737]

 

 

Still the same reason i gave, similar is not the same, plesiosaurs are not dolphins, no matter how many times a land animal evolves into a sea creature it will never independently evolve into a dolphin... If all humans dropped dead tomorrow the great apes might evolve into another animal capable of the things we are but it would still not be human...

Even if a cell line similar to eukaryotes evolved it would still be genetically distinct from any extant eukaryotes, it could be similar but it would not be the same thing..

 

Distinct from extant eukaryotes yes, but there is nothing in the definition of eukaryotes that suggests that they have to be monophyletic. The bacteria and archaea are both prokaryotes, yet they are two different lineages. By the definition of eukaryotes, what I have described would also be eukaryotes. There are distinct lineages of human lactase persistence, but the result is the same. In evolutionary terms, the independent evolution of the same traits time and again shows that evolution can reproduce itself, just by different paths.

 

We are down a rabbit hole now and the original point I made about the time necessary to transition from prokaryote to eukaryote has been lost.

[PathFinder123]

...

We are down a rabbit hole now and the original point I made about the time necessary to transition from prokaryote to eukaryote has been lost.

 

Ha! Have we lost your point, or the time necessary to transition from prokaryote to eukaryote? That was a long rabbit hole...

 

But I have a question: Isn't the better argument if the odds of life being created is1:1?*

 

It seems to me that we get caught up in the idea of "life" meaning "life as we know it." That's like stating the odds against predicting 1,000,000 upcoming spins of a roulette wheel (or 10,000 roulette wheels). The odds of doing that are staggering. Yet when looking back after the wheel has spun, the results aren't that amazing - it's just a fact that they occurred the way they did. The outcome only seems preordained if you assume that no other results were possible. Any one of the results would be equally likely, assuming every aspect of the trial was truly random.

 

So in one evolutionary outcome, we get plesiosaurs AND dolphins. In another, we get sarkybunkels and liberdytoots. In either case, the curious and analytical being is wondering what are the odds that things could have possibly happened exactly the way they did, instead of accepting that they way it happened was completely random and any other outcome was equally possible, although in only a few would either dolphins or sarkybunkels exist. Or am I missing something in the mathematical concepts being applied to the odds against life evolving by chance alone?

 

* Of course, if life didn't exist, this would all be a moot point.

[Moontanman]

 

Distinct from extant eukaryotes yes, but there is nothing in the definition of eukaryotes that suggests that they have to be monophyletic. The bacteria and archaea are both prokaryotes, yet they are two different lineages. By the definition of eukaryotes, what I have described would also be eukaryotes. There are distinct lineages of human lactase persistence, but the result is the same. In evolutionary terms, the independent evolution of the same traits time and again shows that evolution can reproduce itself, just by different paths.

 

We are down a rabbit hole now and the original point I made about the time necessary to transition from prokaryote to eukaryote has been lost.

 

 

It's quite possible that Eukaryota wasn't as adaptable to the conditions on the early earth, hot seas and asteroid impacts could have suppressed eukaryotes, even today eukaryotes do not occupy as extreme conditions as prokaryotes and archaea with archaea being able to live in even more extreme conditions than prokaryotes.

[Sorcerer]

I'm gonna go with 1.

[David F. Powell]

It seems blindingly obvious to me that the odds against life evolving/developing from non-life are infinitely huge. But even if it were possible for life to come from non-life, there remains the basic question - 'How did it all start?' Not just how did life start, but how did the non-life start [the basic atoms, molecules, chemicals etc etc] from which life could have developed? The only answer which can explain or answer this question with any degree of certainty, is the existence of a designer or higher intelligence, which had no beginning and has always existed. In human terms, this seems impossible, since experience tell us that everything must have a beginning or start-point. However, those who have faith in God - the Creator - have an enormous advantage, because believing in the existence of God can instantly explain everything about life and the origin of the universe. Now I hear the atheists saying 'codswallop' - but its easier to prove the existence of God [if you don't have a closed mind], than to prove that life came about by random chance.

[iNow]

57 minutes ago, David F. Powell said:

However, those who have faith in God - the Creator - have an enormous advantage

Delusion? Self-deceit? Communities of likeminded lemmings?

58 minutes ago, David F. Powell said:

believing in the existence of God can instantly explain everything about life and the origin of the universe.

Simply saying “goddidit” explains nothing, except (of course) the human proclivity for accepting simple inaccurate answers instead of facing hard truths and existing contentedly with uncertainties about challenging questions. 

1 hour ago, David F. Powell said:

its easier to prove the existence of God [if you don't have a closed mind], than to prove that life came about by random chance.

Define “god.”

[DrP]

5 hours ago, David F. Powell said:

It seems blindingly obvious to me that the odds against life evolving/developing from non-life are infinitely huge.

Huge - but not infinitely so - that is your error. We are closer and closer to explaining it...  your god of the gaps is getting smaller and smaller as we continue to explain things that were in the past unexplainable and attributed to god. These days he never shows up and is responsible for what exactly in creation? We know how natural selection guides evolution. We have a good idea of how life started through the many many complex steps that took place over billions of years..  Where is god supposed to actually BE in all of this? -  what has he actually done?  You can't just take all the things you do not understand and attribute them to god...  we have done that for thousands of years and our level of ignorance has shrunk...  along with the level of interaction we believe god has with us...  now it is zero outside of people's imaginations.

What seems 'blindingly obvious' isn't always the case. What is the 'blindingly obvious' reason that god hooked the laryngeal nerve all the way down and around the heart before routing all the way back up to the brain? Why did he do it for all animals from fish to the giraffe?  

[swansont]

7 hours ago, David F. Powell said:

but its easier to prove the existence of God [if you don't have a closed mind], than to prove that life came about by random chance.

Since there is no science that claims that life came about by random chance*, this is moot. Which leaves us with a question: can God make a straw-man so big he can't move it?

 

*the outcomes of chemistry are not random

[Moontanman]

8 hours ago, David F. Powell said:

It seems blindingly obvious to me that the odds against life evolving/developing from non-life are infinitely huge. But even if it were possible for life to come from non-life, there remains the basic question - 'How did it all start?' Not just how did life start, but how did the non-life start [the basic atoms, molecules, chemicals etc etc] from which life could have developed? The only answer which can explain or answer this question with any degree of certainty, is the existence of a designer or higher intelligence, which had no beginning and has always existed. In human terms, this seems impossible, since experience tell us that everything must have a beginning or start-point. However, those who have faith in God - the Creator - have an enormous advantage, because believing in the existence of God can instantly explain everything about life and the origin of the universe. Now I hear the atheists saying 'codswallop' - but its easier to prove the existence of God [if you don't have a closed mind], than to prove that life came about by random chance.

It would seem blindingly obviously that you are obviously blinded  by your religious beliefs, that blindingly obvious advantage you think you have will disappear when you step over the unseen precipice of the knowledge you lack... What do you want to bet this guy is a one hit wonder? 

Edited December 14, 2017 by Moontanman

[DrP]

1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

What do you want to bet this guy is a one hit wonder? 

Maybe.  He looks a bit like my Granddad, who introduced me to religion. I loved him very much. I understand how people get taken in by it. Times are progressing though and you have to be true to yourself, the whole of Christianity is based on the bible...  which is provably wrong in many places and full of errors and contradictions...  all of which you make excuses for and explain away when questioned about  -  I am done defending god and his bullshit in the bible. All it would reasonably take to disprove that the Christian god is infallible would be to find a single error in the bible.  -  the errors and contradictions are many. The whole lot is clearly a work of fiction, based on some very thin actual history passed on by hearsay rather than recorded text. 

I do, however, like the general idea of looking to something greater than ones self, practicing love, forgiveness, mercy, etc.. trying to be humble and going about life with a sense of humility and gratefulness.  I have never gotten this right - but I am not sure it is possible - although I have met some lovely people that are fair 'better' than me with their love and compassion for mankind and animals and their peaceful natures. 

[mistermack]

Someone's probably already said this. But anyway, just in case : 

What are the odds of a being so advanced as to be able to create an entire universe from nothing existing from infinite time ago, deciding to create the entire universe so that it looks 14 billion years old from every angle, and then create various forms of life, and cunningly designed it all to give the illusion that life started and evolved without any outside help. 

I would say that the odds against that are nearly infinite. Billions of times longer odds, than life starting through non-directed chemical events.

[Dan Brooks]

Such well thought out and scientific answers to this OP huh? A list of strawmen arguments, (apparently not knowing what a strawman argument is), and then saying that it's not random? Well if it isn't random, then it isn't chance. But I agree it isn't random. So there's no chance. No one can prove against the statements in the OP (which even includes statements from evolutionary scientists), or even give scientific or logical arguments against it, so the responders resort to bad-mouthing the comments themselves. Science doesn't lead anyone to evolutionism and atheism. Atheism leads one to evolutionism, and science is the hat rack.

[StringJunky]

16 hours ago, mistermack said:

I would say that the odds against that are nearly infinite. Billions of times longer odds, than life starting through non-directed chemical events.

But they are directed, by their chemical natures, which are innate and repeatable across each type of chemical entity, like atoms, molecules etc. The stochastic part is the probability of collisions occurring.

[dimreepr]

45 minutes ago, Dan Brooks said:

Such well thought out and scientific answers to this OP huh? A list of strawmen arguments, (apparently not knowing what a strawman argument is), and then saying that it's not random? Well if it isn't random, then it isn't chance. But I agree it isn't random. So there's no chance. No one can prove against the statements in the OP (which even includes statements from evolutionary scientists), or even give scientific or logical arguments against it, so the responders resort to bad-mouthing the comments themselves. Science doesn't lead anyone to evolutionism and atheism. Atheism leads one to evolutionism, and science is the hat rack.

The only real evidence we have is, its happened here, and since we haven't any evidence of a controlling entity the answer to the OP is, the odds are pretty damn good.

[swansont]

On January 13, 2018 at 9:31 AM, Dan Brooks said:

Such well thought out and scientific answers to this OP huh? A list of strawmen arguments, (apparently not knowing what a strawman argument is), and then saying that it's not random? Well if it isn't random, then it isn't chance. But I agree it isn't random. So there's no chance. No one can prove against the statements in the OP (which even includes statements from evolutionary scientists), or even give scientific or logical arguments against it, so the responders resort to bad-mouthing the comments themselves. Science doesn't lead anyone to evolutionism and atheism. Atheism leads one to evolutionism, and science is the hat rack.

It should be clear from the OP that random is taken to mean "all outcomes are equally probable" and in that sense, what we are discussing is not random. If one merely means that there are probabilities for the possible outcomes, then it is random (stochastic), but for many pathways the probability is zero, so the naive calculations that are presented are grossly wrong. The Urey-Miller experiment shows the approach of the OP to be wrong. 

[beecee]

5 hours ago, Dan Brooks said:

Such well thought out and scientific answers to this OP huh? 

The evolution of life is entirely a scientific explanation based on observational data, that is as certain as any scientific theory can be.

Quote

 No one can prove against the statements in the OP (which even includes statements from evolutionary scientists),

Science does not deal in proofs, but as you have already been informed, evolution is for all intents and purposes, certain.

.

Quote

Science doesn't lead anyone to evolutionism and atheism. Atheism leads one to evolutionism, and science is the hat rack.

A total nonsensical statement. Galileo for example showed that the church supported geocentric model was false. Since then the earth has been shown to be simply a planet orbiting a humdrum star, in the outskirts of a average galaxy among billions of other galaxies in the observable universe. While evolution maybe a fact, Abiogenesis is the only scientific answer as to how life started. No labels such as "atheism" needed, it is simply logical conclusions, based on observational data, and the application of science, without which we all would still be swinging in the trees. 

[mistermack]

6 hours ago, StringJunky said:

But they are directed, by their chemical natures, which are innate and repeatable across each type of chemical entity, like atoms, molecules etc. The stochastic part is the probability of collisions occurring.

I mean not directed by an intelligent creator. Of course, you have to calculate the odds on such a creator coming into existence spontaneously, without being created by a creator. 

The odds against an infinitely old creator existing, are of course infinite.

[beecee]

On 7/23/2012 at 10:25 AM, Alan McDougall said:

Then please tell me exactly how life came to be?

Good question! And although empirical evidence to the answer to that question is absent at this time, universally speaking, the only scientific answer to how life first arose is Abiogenesis, despite scientists at this time not knowing by what exact methodology and detail. The fact that we are here, supports the only scientific answer of Abiogenesis. 

1 hour ago, seriously disabled said:

The Creator argument is nonsense in my opinion when you look at the state of the world.

Plus of course it is not a scientific answer to the question of how life arose.

[Moontanman]

On 1/12/2018 at 5:53 PM, mistermack said:

Someone's probably already said this. But anyway, just in case : 

What are the odds of a being so advanced as to be able to create an entire universe from nothing existing from infinite time ago, deciding to create the entire universe so that it looks 14 billion years old from every angle, and then create various forms of life, and cunningly designed it all to give the illusion that life started and evolved without any outside help. 

I would say that the odds against that are nearly infinite. Billions of times longer odds, than life starting through non-directed chemical events.

I would say you need a better understanding of the science around the expansion of the universe. No astrophysicist or cosmologist worth his salt would say the universe came from nothing or that a being was involved or that it could not have outside help. Nor would anyone who studies these things assert that the big bang was cunningly designed to give an illusion of anything. Your words are loaded with the insinuation of the conclusion you want. Your entire question is a logical fallacy called begging the question. 

The chemistry that gave rise to life is not random, chemical reactions are not random. Chemical elements can only react in certain ways under certain conditions, this is not random. If you must insist on giving this process odds then the odds are 1/1. We know of it happening once in one place. Until we more data point odds are meaningless...

You might want to start your search here...

https://www.wired.com/story/controversial-new-theory-suggests-life-wasnt-a-fluke-of-biologyit-was-physics/

[mistermack]

Moontanman, I don't think you have understood my post. 

[Moontanman]

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

Moontanman, I don't think you have understood my post. 

Knowing me as well as I do and being under the influence of cold medicine that is quite possible, can you explain what I misunderstood?