At 11:05 PM 5/8/97 -0700, Damon Casale wrote:
On Thu, 8 May 1997, Thomas R Jefferys wrote:
Ahhh, the Argument by Design. Sorry, not buying it. It's an old argument
and it's not valid anymore. See "The Selfish Gene" and "The Blind
Watchmaker". They basically argue and support that complex systems aren't
neccessarily designed.
That's true. But the more complex something is, the less likely design
didn't play a part in it. There are mitigating factors, but this is a
good rule of thumb. Probability, which is thought to have played the
whole role in the development of the proteins found in living things,
gives the odds as rather steep against even one of the simple amino acid
chains coming into existence by chance. I'll illustrate:
Assume 20 amino acid types are in your "proto" environment. This is
close enough for statistical purposes. Assume that they are evenly
balanced between "left handed" and "right handed" acids. These are
arbitrary designations to indicate particular configurations of atoms
for two acids which have the same constituent atoms. Now, fill all of
the oceans of the earth with *just* those acids, about 10^46 molecules
all told.
Scientists have stated that there *may* be as many as 10^22 stars in the
observable universe. Let's be generous and say 1,000 times as many:
10^25. Allowing TEN earth-like planets for each star, we have 10^26
"earths" x 10^46 amino acid molecules per earth for a total of 10^72
amino acid molecules.
Now, let's have *all* of those link together into chains 100 amino acids
long, once every second, since the beginning of the universe (let's say
10 billion years ago). That's 10^70 chains per second x 10^8 seconds
per year (not quite, but we're being generous again) x 10^10 years =
10^88 different possible combinations of amino acid chains that have
formed on all these earths since the beginning of the universe.
BUT, the chance of one of those chains being one of the simple proteins
found in life, which just happens to be 100 amino acids long, is 1 in
10^42. Why? Well, the number of different combinations of a protein
100 amino acids long, formed out of 20 different types of amino acids,
would be 20 x 20 x 20 x ... = 20^100, which is approximately equal to
10^130. With 10^88 possible combinations *formed* since the creation of
the universe, the chance of hitting this 1 in 10^130 bullseye is 10^88
divided by 10^130, which is 1 in 10^42.
I don't know about you, but I don't like those odds, especially generous
as they were. And I'm not even taking into account the three
dimensional structure of the protein, or the fact that most proteins are
closer to 500 amino acids long. Remember also that natural selection
could not have possibly made this event more probable. Natural
selection only filters what you already have.
My only comment is, evolutionists gamble on terrible odds. Yes, it
*could* have happened, but did it? "Probably" not.
Your calculations are based on a fallacy. You don't consider life as an
outcome of a self-organizing system. Check out some of the recent work on
pre-biotic chemistry.
The Bible runs into trouble with history and physical reality because
it's
a religious book, not a historical chronicle or physics article.
It's a historical chronicle too. Why do you think two of the books are
called I and II "Chronicles"?
Actually, even the most orthodox of Jews regard only the five books of
Moses as the direct word of G-d. The prophets, by contrast, are considered
divinely inspired, but human interpreted (i.e. the prophets themselves) and
subject to error. I don't know if Damon feels that beliefs of Jews
matters. After all, they are only the direct physical and cultural
descendents of those who wrote the Bible (with the possible exception of
the five books).
Now let's get this off the FFML.
dml