At 03:18 AM 8/6/2012, Jojo Jaro wrote:
In my continuing seris of Posts, I will touch on the issue of
Genetic Improbablity. The article below probably best describes
this problem of genetic improbability. The Paper is a well-cited
paper and should be worthy of sciencific acceptance from open minded
folks here:
The problem is that the paper assumes errors. Garbage in, garbage
out. Jojo, I've been watching this. You have swallowed a pile of
highly defective argument.
From The Myth of Natural Origins; How Science Points to Divine Creation
Ashby Camp, Ktisis Publishing, Tempe, Arizona, 1994, pp. 53-57,
used by permission.
[...]
Even on a theoretical level, it does not seem possible for mutations
to account for the diversity of life on earth, at least not in the
time available. According to Professor Ambrose, the minimum number
of mutations necessary to produce the simplest new structure in an
organism is five (Davis, 67-68; Bird, 1:88), but these five
mutations must be the proper type and must affect five genes that
are functionally related. Davis, 67-68. In other words, not just any
five mutations will do. The odds against this occurring in a single
organism are astronomical.
There is a lost consideration. Take a random combination of five
letters. Not just any combination will form a functional word.
However, there are many combinations that would form a word. There is
an assumption here that the mutations to form a particular word must
occur simultaneously. That's completely bogus.
Mutations of any kind are believed to occur once in every 100,000
gene replications (though some estimate they occur far less
frequently). Davis, 68; Wysong, 272.
This would vary greatly with environment and the particular organism.
Assuming that the first single-celled organism had 10,000 genes,
the same number as E. coli (Wysong, 113), one mutation would exist
for every ten cells.
A "mutation" is a process. So what is being said is that there would
be one mutation per ten cell replications.
Just note: the first living things, under most understandings, would
certainly not be a "single-celled organism." It would be a
self-replicating molecule, an enzyme that catalyzes its own
production. It would not be something we would recognize as living.
We don't recognize DNA as living, rather DNA can catalyze the
assembly of elements that create something we recognize as living,
but stripping this down to basics, the simplest element is something
that reproduces itself, given the appropriate environment. DNA as we
know it is probably far more complex than the original
self-replicating molecule.
I'm not sure what definition of "mutation" is being used here, and
this could be part of the problem. A change in the nucleotide
sequence, something other than exact copying, is the simple
definition. Call them "errors." Not all errors are expressed in the
organism, and I suspect that "mutation" is being restricted to
something expressed. It actually causes a change in function.
Since only one mutation per 1,000 is non-harmful (Davis, 66),
I don't trust this figure. What research is it based upon? (No, I'm
not looking it up today.) Note, again, this does not refer to
changes. Further, the definition of mutation used in the original
claim about once in every 100,000 gene replications may be different.
If a mutation requires an expressed difference, what kind of difference?
I don't know what "harmful" means. Does it mean that any cell with
that specific mutation will not function?
there would be only one non-harmful mutation in a population of
10,000 such cells. The odds that this one non-harmful mutation
would affect a particular gene, however, is 1 in 10,000 (since
there are 10,000 genes). Therefore, one would need a population of
100,000,000 cells before one of them would be expected to possess a
non-harmful mutation of a specific gene.
The odds of a single cell possessing non-harmful mutations of five
specific (functionally related) genes is the product of their
separate probabilities. Morris, 63. In other words, the probability
is 1 in 108 X 108 X 108 X 108 X 108, or 1 in 1040. If one hundred
trillion (1014) bacteria were produced every second for five billion
years (1017 seconds), the resulting population (1031) would be only
1/1,000,000,000 of what was needed!
There is a total imprecision of definition here. The claim of five
genes needing to be changed simultaneously is highly suspect. There
is a complete neglect of the vast amount of "junk DNA" present in the
genome. "Junk DNA" may have been functional at one time, but
expression was turned off. To turn expression on and off takes, if
I'm correct, a single mutation.
It's a mess.
[...]
When one considers that a structure as "simple" as the wing on a
fruit fly involves 30-40 genes (Bird, 1:88), it is mathematically
absurd to think that random genetic mutations can account for the
vast diversity of life on earth. Even Julian Huxley, a staunch
evolutionist who made assumptions very favorable to the theory,
computed the odds against the evolution of a horse to be 1 in
10300,000. Pitman, 68. If only more Christians had that kind of faith!
The problem with these calculations is that they assume only one
possible "horse." Imagine you toss a coin many times, then you look
in the sequence of coin tosses for some remarkable pattern of, say,
100 tosses. You then calculate the probability of *that pattern*
arising by chance. You will conclude that it's impossible, by the
argument being used.
Random genetic changes are only one part of the mechanism of
evolution. The process is guided by results, i.e., by the mechanism
of life and how it is impacted by the random changes. Populations
diverge when they no longer gene-mix. E coli is already a very
complex organism that shares genes, if I'm correct.
We don't understand the whole process, but ascribing it to "creation"
simply begs the question. Created. Fine. *How?*
Treating a mystery as if it is a proof for something is a common
logical error. A mystery is a mystery.
The *mechanism* of evolution is reasonably well understood, however,
and post-hoc probability analyses, based on a highly biased selection
of possible probabilities, are no help.
The first step is to understand how the characteristics of life are
maintained by the genetic code, how life works *without* change. Then
how the code changes. The code changes. We know that. Most of the
changes are, in fact, completely harmless. (Well, maybe not. But not
harmless changes are eliminated quickly, most of them, only a few
would survive to birth in a human, for example.)
Postulating "creation by an intelligent being" as the mechanism of
evolution, avoiding examination of the *mechanism of creation* -- as
if it were simply magic or the equivalent -- postulating continual
divine intervention in the mutation process that takes place with
each individual, without actually doing the work to show that there
is a non-random element in real mutations, is simple laziness.
Goddidit.
We may individually choose to stop investigation with such a
conclusion, and that can sometimes be functional. But sitting here
and imagining that nearly everyone who thinks about these problems is
befogged because of their stupid belief in something radically
improbable, according to your own biased analysis, is actually
arrogance, and God doesn't like arrogance. Have a bit of humility,
Jaro, it would benefit you.
Don't say you weren't warned.
