oldest theory disproved(ot but great)

[Saeviomagy]

For the formation of a structure such as DNA, the possibility of it spontaeneously coming into existence is extremely slim.

However, the chance of some coming into existence somewhere within the universe within a given second is pretty large.

Example:
Winning the jackpot in the lottery is amazingly unlikely (in the NSW state lottery, it's roughly 1/(8.15 million)). Yet somehow people keep winning it. Why? Because there are 40 million tickets bought in each draw.

While it IS true that the chance for an event (ie - the creation of DNA) to happen is exceedingly small, it must be borne in mind that there are somewhere in the region of 10 ^ 21 stars in the universe. The universe has existed for somewhere in the region of 13 Gyrs (13*10^12 years).

That's some pretty impressively big numbers.

 

[Mark Chance]

However, the chance of some coming into existence somewhere within the universe within a given second is pretty large.

Actually, there is good reason to believe that this is not the case. DNA sequencing is not like a lottery sequence since DNA sequencing packs an absolutely enormous amount of information that is capable of self-replication. Without all of the proper molecular parts existing in the correct sequence, DNA does nothing.

IOW, the correlation of specified complexity and irreducible complexity pose questions that macroevolutionary theory cannot answer.

Part of the problem isn't just the astronomical odds against spontaneous generation of something as complex as DNA. The problem also includes factors of time and environmental conditions. The universe simply isn't old enough, and the environmental conditions theorized necessary for the development of life are so rare that Earth's solar system is the only known place where such conditions exist, and the overwhelming majority of other places can be ruled out of hand due to issues pertaining to background radioactivity, stars of the "wrong" type, et cetera.

Of course, many macroevolutionists say that these problem just reflect a gap in our knowledge, not a problem with the theory (theories, really) itself. IMO, I don't see how this line of thinking is any different that a "God of the gaps" solution.

After posting this helpful link, I leap away from this potentially trouble-starting issue: Why evolutionary algorithms cannot generate specified complexity.

 

[Wicht]

This may be too controversial to even point out, but as I was reading the reparte of quotes along these lines, I can't help but think that evolution is essentially this same idea.

Evolution is the same idea. The monkey theory was first put forward to help show that evolution was true. That is why those who believe in evolution have to believe in the monkey theory. You can't have the one without the other.

I have however tried to stay away from arguing evolution. Arguing probability is in this case just as good.

by Saeviomagy
No. It doesn't. In a truly random system, a predefined outcome is just as likely as another predefined outcome. In this case, the two predefined outcomes are "a pattern which is the same as some fragment of language" and "a pattern which is not the same as some fragment of language".

Actually probability does break down when structure and design are involved. There is a reason you will never find a casino complete with flourescent lights carved out of the rocks by natural wind and erosion. Random chance is not good at producing design.

There are a couple of issues. One, which I pointed out is the fact that in a random drawing you are just as likely to draw an e as a z. Not so in language. I still would be interested in seeing how long it would take a random computer program to produce even a fullintelligible sentence.

Furthermore, when looking for a specific outcome in any random generation you have lowered your likelyhood of getting what you want. If youwant to roll a 6 on a six sided dice, the odds are one in 6. But there is a 5 in 6 chance of getting something else. Thus while theoritically the odds of any one outcome arising are the same, the likelyhood of a nonspecific outcome is always greater than that of a specific. When you start to really multiply this into the millions, the odds of getting any one result getting smaller and smaller until statisticians feel comfortable telling you a thing will never happen in this universe. I believe the number thrown about is the the improbability equal to the number of particles in the universe. Therefore, while the monkey theory may (and I stress may cause there are other issues with it) be valid in a infinite universe with infinite time our universe has neither.

 

[Ashardalon]

Chicken or egg is not a theory, but a conundrum.

Egg. It had already existed long before the chicken evolved.

 

[Dr. Harry]

This may be too controversial to even point out, but as I was reading the reparte of quotes along these lines, I can't help but think that evolution is essentially this same idea. Either the mathematics are overstating the "impossibility" of randomly creating complex structures out of essentially basic building blocks (ala creating the works of Shakespeare at random with only monkeys and typewriters as inputs, or creating a human being from carbonaceous chemical compounds in a primeval ocean with... unknown inputs) or the theory of evolution is seriously flawed. But I don't really want to start a discussion of evolution -- merely point out that while one branch of accepted science may sneer at the idea, as we've seen here, another is using the idea for all it's worth. I'd be careful about shutting the door on it completely.

Actually, it is that definition of evolution used here that is flawed.

In this first case, biological evolution is the field of study examining the development of life over time. The actual study of the initial development of life would be the related but separate field of abiogenesis.

In the second case, while Darwin had to use a general statistical analysis to make an argument for the concept, the development of chemistry, geology, and biology since then has shown that the processes involved are not completely random, but "random" within the limitations of *very* rigorous physical limitations. As Douglas Adams put it, "rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty". The random mutations within evolution for example, are filtered very strongly by the non-random conditions of the environment the creatures live in.

In the third case, creating a human being out of random carbon components is very unlikely - I'd even go so far as to say workably impossible, *but*, if you are examining natural history as different forces and selection factors operated over time, each step between there and here is possible, even inevitable. This is not to say that the existence of human beings (or koalas, or squirrels, etc., is inevitable, but that given a certain set of starting conditions it is not surprising that such a diversity of life exists. Looking back from the perspective of human beings existing, and calculating the odds that the natural universe is so arranged that we had to exist as we are now is equivalent to looking at a randomly dealt bridge hand and asking what the odds are that we drew that *particular* hand. If the question is "does evolutionary biology lead to the conclusion that it is a reasonable effect for us to exist?", the answer is yes. If the question is "does evolutionary biology require that we are here?", the answer is no.

In the fourth case, to be explicit, I wrote this to hopefully clarify some of the questions brought up about evolution, not to continue the slide this has taken (from early on)into arguing about creationism. Since creationism is a religious and political argument (as it is quite a dead letter as far as scientific debate goes), it would be an extraordinarily bad idea to try and "sneak" it into the ENWorld boards.

I also hope this serves to respond to another (different)poster's incorrect claim that

That is why those who believe in evolution have to believe in the monkey theory. You can't have the one without the other.

 

[Desdichado]

No, actually I understand evolution quite well, being almost technically proficient enough to go toe to toe with paleontologists on the subject from time to time.

I'm not trying to "sneak" it into the ENboards. I am not a creationist, so my discussion of evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with religious or political agendas (although by their very nature, it's probably impossible to discuss it without it eventually becoming embroiled in religious or political baggage that it carries.) I understand that evolution posits a series of steps leading up to human beings, not human beings per se being created literally from the primordial soup. And yes, the genesis of life in the first place vs. the evolution of life are two different subjects.

But the argument is still essentially the same one; and how complex multicellular life came to be from simple unicellular (or not even completely cellular, as in virus life forms) is as much a mystery as is the genesis of life itself. I happen to think that the theory of evolution is missing some key ingredient -- it fails to adequately explain what we see in the fossil record. At a macro level it works, but when you look at the actual details, it embarassingly consistently fails to do so.

A simple example: Archeopterix lithographica commonly held up as the poster child of evolution -- a clear cut case of a dinosaur-bird hybrid, right? Wrong. Archeopterix springs out of the fossil record like Athena from Zeus's head, fully formed with fully formed flight feathers, and there are no precursors anywhere in the fossil record to explain where it comes from. Not only that, the closest relative it has amongst dinosaurs embarassingly occur many tens of millions of years later, in the mid Cretaceous. Quite a few specialists hold out alternate ideas, that birds evolved from some earlier pre-dinosaurian "thecodont" ancestor, that birds evolved from some earlier dinosaur stock such as Protoavis (if such a creature isn't just a chimera, as other specialists believe) etc. Cladistic analysis often nests birds firmly as descendents of Archeopterix but often simply reveal the biases of the person conducting the cladistic analysis, and all sides conveniently ignore glaring holes that remain unexplained.

The theory of evolution remains untested and untestable. It's ironic that the idea of punctuated equilibrium seems to explain why we can't find better evidence of evolution -- it's a fait accompli for explaining our lack of better evidence. Exactly what would drive punctuated equilibrium, or any other evolutionary process for that matter, remains completely conjectural and speculative.

There. None of that was, I trust, religious or political in nature, merely pointing out that the theory itself has some serious problems. Do I have a better model to replace evolution, as Einstein's model of gravity replaced Newton's? Absolutely not. That doesn't mean I don't believe there isn't a model out there waiting to be discovered.

 

[Dr. Harry]

I'm not trying to "sneak" it into the ENboards. I am not a creationist, so my discussion of evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with religious or political agendas (although by their very nature, it's probably impossible to discuss it without it eventually becoming embroiled in religious or political baggage that it carries.)

It is straightforward to discuss evolutionary biology without recourse to religion or politics, but as the creationist movement is solely religious / political, problems will arise at that point. For example, the support for William Dembski's flawed attempt to treat evolutionary biology according to his theories of information sounds scientific as I write it here, but his support (and his argument, at its base) is in splinter religion and splinter politics. Please see scientific evaluations of Dembski's work here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/design/faqs/nfl/

I understand that evolution posits a series of steps leading up to human beings, not human beings per se being created literally from the primordial soup.

Forgive me if this seems pedantic, but on such small details hang a lot of the opposition. Evolutionary biology traces the links between early life and current life, among other things. To speak of evolution in this way implies the common, but false, image of evolution as a ladder with us at the top, chimps one step down, chickens a little lower, and so on to amoebas. Everything on Earth is just as "evolved" as everything else. Sorry for the interruption, ust wanted to make that clear.

And yes, the genesis of life in the first place vs. the evolution of life are two different subjects.

But the argument is still essentially the same one; and how complex multicellular life came to be from simple unicellular (or not even completely cellular, as in virus life forms) is as much a mystery as is the genesis of life itself. I happen to think that the theory of evolution is missing some key ingredient -- it fails to adequately explain what we see in the fossil record.

How so?

At a macro level it works, but when you look at the actual details, it embarassingly consistently fails to do so.

A simple example: Archeopterix lithographica commonly held up as the poster child of evolution -- a clear cut case of a dinosaur-bird hybrid, right? Wrong. Archeopterix springs out of the fossil record like Athena from Zeus's head, fully formed with fully formed flight feathers, and there are no precursors anywhere in the fossil record to explain where it comes from. Not only that, the closest relative it has amongst dinosaurs embarassingly occur many tens of millions of years later, in the mid Cretaceous. ..., and all sides conveniently ignore glaring holes that remain unexplained.[/B][/QUOTE]

I am alive right now, as are not only my parents but a number of my uncles and aunts. It is not necessary for all of a creature's evolutionary precursors and "relatives" to be extinct for a species to exist.

If you are saying that a theory must fully map out all the lines of descent of all living creatures, especially given how rarely fossilization will occur, then you have set up an impossible - and I would say unreasonable- standard.

Archeopterix does not spring out fully formed - the skeletal structures clearly illustrate relationships between that life form and other life forms that preceded it.

The theory of evolution remains untested and untestable. It's ironic that the idea of punctuated equilibrium seems to explain why we can't find better evidence of evolution -- it's a fait accompli for explaining our lack of better evidence. Exactly what would drive punctuated equilibrium, or any other evolutionary process for that matter, remains completely conjectural and speculative.[/QUOTE

Here, I must disagree with you most strenuously. There are few theories (bodies of knowledge) that have been tested as much as evolution has been. Please examine the link below for far more depth.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

No, there are ways to test the propositions of punctuated equilibrium, and while the role played by different mechanisms is the subject of healthy debate, the mechanisms themselves are anything but conjectural or speculative.

There. None of that was, I trust, religious or political in nature, merely pointing out that the theory itself has some serious problems. Do I have a better model to replace evolution, as Einstein's model of gravity replaced Newton's? Absolutely not. That doesn't mean I don't believe there isn't a model out there waiting to be discovered.

Thank you for allowing me to end on the following point, which I believe illustrates a central problem in communication.

Einstien's model of gravity did not replace Newton's

This is really two statements. I have a Ph.D. in physics, and teach physics and astronomy. We still teach Isaac Newton's equations. Weren't they replaced? No, Einstein's work represents a refinement of Newtonian physics, but it did not replace it - Einstein's work allowed physics to be extended. Gregor Mendel's work helped explain how natural selection operates, but just because Darwin didn't know about genetics does not mean that his work was wrong, per se, just "incompletely correct"

It seems from your arguments that you may find the arguments in the collection of essays edited by Robert Pennock of Michigan State in _Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics_ interesting. Some essays address specifically religious themes, but many speak to the objections that you have made.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...f=sr_1_1/104-0056243-3915168?v=glance&s=books

 

[Dr. Harry]

I would like to state explicitely that my reference to William Dembski, and the rebuttal to his claims, was included in my response to Mr. Dyal not because he, himself, brought it up, but as someone else had, I wished to address that as well.

 

[Creeping Death]

Kind of turned serious

There was this guy in my P.E. class in high school that liked to show off. He wasn't skilled enough to get on the basketball team but he was good enough to be one of the first picked in the P.E. class. The coach didn't like him because this kid was late, loud, and flippant. One day this kid was playing basket ball and a few of us were watching, including the coach.

This kid made an awesome shot that went right in. It was pure luck, if Jordan had done this shot it would have been on the cover of SI. Anyways, the coach turns to us and says, "Given an infinite number of monkeys, an infinite number of typewritters, and an infinite amount of time, the collected works of shakespeare will be produced."

We all laughed.

 

[Desdichado]

Forgive me if this seems pedantic, but on such small details hang a lot of the opposition. Evolutionary biology traces the links between early life and current life, among other things. To speak of evolution in this way implies the common, but false, image of evolution as a ladder with us at the top, chimps one step down, chickens a little lower, and so on to amoebas. Everything on Earth is just as "evolved" as everything else. Sorry for the interruption, ust wanted to make that clear.

Well, yes and no. Some life forms are clearly more derived that others, and on such rests cladistic analysis. I'm not sure how anything I said implies that evolution has been leading up to humans or anything like that; certainly humans are a life form that lives currently, but as you say, if evolution works at all as posited, then it could just as well have given us something else.

How so?

I gave one example. In dinosaur paleontology there are dozens of other examples I can think of easily. Ceratopsians are supposed to have arisen from something very similar to Psittacosaurus for example. But not exactly, because Psittacosaurus has certain derived features that disqualify it for ancestry. My example with Archeopterix is another.

I am alive right now, as are not only my parents but a number of my uncles and aunts. It is not necessary for all of a creature's evolutionary precursors and "relatives" to be extinct for a species to exist.

If you are saying that a theory must fully map out all the lines of descent of all living creatures, especially given how rarely fossilization will occur, then you have set up an impossible - and I would say unreasonable- standard.

Archeopterix does not spring out fully formed - the skeletal structures clearly illustrate relationships between that life form and other life forms that preceded it.

No, no clearly and closely related species appear until tens of millions of years later, when there is a virtual explosion of closely related (although clearly flightless and not necessarily feathered) relatives in the form of the Maniraptoriformes. I don't certainly require that all living forms be fossilized and catalogued, but that particular incident is most embarrassing for the dinosaur-bird hypothesis, and is one that it's detractors (who come from the Protoavis camp, or the "thecodont" camp) hold up in askance to the theory. It's not something that alone could kill the theory, because the "blotchiness" of the fossil record is certainly a well-known attribute, but at the same time, this particular absense is very glaring and very hard to explain.

Thank you for allowing me to end on the following point, which I believe illustrates a central problem in communication.

Einstien's model of gravity did not replace Newton's

This is really two statements. I have a Ph.D. in physics, and teach physics and astronomy. We still teach Isaac Newton's equations. Weren't they replaced? No, Einstein's work represents a refinement of Newtonian physics, but it did not replace it - Einstein's work allowed physics to be extended. Gregor Mendel's work helped explain how natural selection operates, but just because Darwin didn't know about genetics does not mean that his work was wrong, per se, just "incompletely correct"

Certainly Einstein's theory replaced Newton's. That doesn't imply that it didn't derive from Newton's earlier work -- Newton's work is quite accurate despite it's lack of refinements, and as I understand it (not having the level of expertise that you do) Einstein's work itself will probably require more refinement yet, as it doesn't completely describe what we see in some extreme situations, such as supermassive black holes and the like, but Einstein's "refinements" over Newton's earlier work increased our understanding of the universe on an order of magnitude not seen in many, many years.

I am quite well aware of the nature of Newton's theories to Einstein's and picked that example for a reason. Evolution is a very useful tool. The relationships between species that it allows us to construct, especially with the tool of cladistic analysis, is most probably entirely correct. But it's explanation of exactly how that happened is full of holes, conjecture and speculation.