Then plants should be a whole lot more complex, advanced, and intelligent than humans.
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Itâs reasonable to demand experimental demonstration of outrageous claims if one invokes a naturalistic mechanism (what I call ânormative mechanismâ since thatâs a less metaphysically loaded phrase). Science should value skepticism over faith when there is no direct observation.
In contrast, if one believes a miracle was the cause of something like life, an experimental demonstration isnât possible in principle, and one might, as a little child, simply accept it as fact based on their best guess.
It is claimed in the gospels, Jesus fed the 5000 from a few loves of bread and a few fish. Thatâs a violation of the 1st law of thermodynamics. Jesus would also have to replicate the biochemistry of cooked fish and bread, and probably all the anotomical features of cooked fish. This miracle is not a claim of normative mechanisms being in operation. Neither is it subject to direct experimental investigation.
In contrast evolutionary theory claims normative mechanisms, but it has no experiments that would actually make it believable to me. I used to be an evolutionist, but at some point, the evolutionary and abiogenesis view didnât accord with normative mechanisms. My belief it was a miracle is personal like a little child accepting it as truth. In principle it could be shattered with an experimental demonstration.
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That sounds like a discussion wrought with semantic difficulties. What counts as a new protein or new gene? Thatâs just a start. How are you handling horizontal genetic transfer, or recombination? It seems simpler to ask if there is an unbroken chain of heredity.
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Why wouldnât you require the same of supernatural mechanisms?
I find it interesting that you demand the direct observation of abiogenesis or the emergence of eukaryotes, and yet you donât demand the direct observation of God creating anything. Would you think it fair for people to accept evolution until someone observes God creating a new lifeform?
Reality doesnât require your belief. We are interested in how the universe works, not in what you are willing to believe.
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So what would count as arguments for design? An experimental demonstration by God?
Ok so, you tell God to show up when you want, how you want, how many times you want. That might be believable, and there is a certain logic to that. I believe in light switches because I can operate them at will. Design isnât controllable like that.
So, if you wonât accept arguments against abiogenesis and evolution as evidence of design, I respect that. On the other hand, there are a few people who think evidence against abiogenesis and universal common ancestry is evidence of Design and/or Special Creation through a miracle.
In addition, it is highly doubtful that your statistics actually make sense. We have seen more than our share of Sharpshooter fallacies here.
Violations of the law of large numbers is not the result of Sharpshooter fallacies, there are many violations of the law of large numbers, and thus indirectly Gibbs free energy, in abiogenesis.
Itâs a little harder to describe violations of expectation regarding quaternary structure so clearly, but there are geometric issues involved much like Locks needed to be matched with keys. Those arenât sharpshooter fallacies any more than the improbability of the binding specifities of Zinc Finger proteins and transcription factors are sharpshooter fallacies.
You start with the proposed mechanisms of design, and then make predictions of how that should play out in data sets like comparative genomics. You also need a null hypothesis which is a set of data that would falsify your hypothesis. For example, what pattern of similarities and differences between the genomes of different species would falsify design? If we were comparing introns and exons between shared genes, what would we expect to see in the patterns of divergence between them? What patterns of substitution mutations should we see?
What is true and what people believe arenât always the same thing.
How does that apply to shared ancestry between humans and other primates?
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How can you claim this, when you donât know the process?
Nothing in biology violates the law of large numbers (whatever that is). And nothing that we know about the origin of life violates this law.
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@stcordova, I would still like to know the answer to this. Maybe it would be easier to do the calculation for 100 coordinated changes. Or 50. No matter - any sort of ballpark estimate will be fine.
Thanks.
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Let us note that Sal is not actually arguing for design. Heâs arguing for separate creation of kinds, though he cannot define any kinds, and during a single week around 6000 years ago at that.
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I donât know for their models and which scenarios they are talking of. But for some, like those requiring coordinated changes in multiple proteins and orphan proteins/genes, it doesnât make sense to ever expect them to evolve. Examples were already mentioned when localization peptides need to be installed on multiple proteins at the same time.
But an even more terse example are the coordinated changes in subunits needed to go from prokaryotic initiation of protein synthesis vs. the eukaryotic initiation. The creature would be DOA trying to evolve one from the other. So, to answer your question as to how long, âforeverâ comes to mind for that case.
vs.
Note also the goal is not to be scientific. The goal is to sound scientific enough to fool ignorant laymen into supporting YEC nonsense.
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Just an observation. I disagree with Sal as much as the next guy but it seems to me heâs been a pretty nice guy since being on peaceful science. Maybe we can be a little less combative and just discuss the science?
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The law of large numbers yields the racemic mixture of chiral species. Furthermore, SMSB cannot be confused with obtaining chiral mixtures by kinetic control instead of racemic ones. This can be a process useful in bench chemistry, but it cannot play a significant role in chemical evolution, where very long time scales are implied.
Of course there is a means of chiral polarization, we call it a living organism. In the absence of that, at best we can synthesize one or two species of amino acids at a time in highly purified environments that might get chiral polarization, but even then there is an inherent tendency to racemize much like shaing a table that had 500 fair coins 100% heads at the start and then will approach 50% heads as it is shaken. The law of large numbers implies chance will not result in 100% heads or homochirality for any sustained length of time. Homochirality is important for the formation of alpha helices and beta sheets, and thus stable proteins. Homochirality erodes over time, so more time doesnât help chemical evolution, it hurts it.
Additionally, the law of large numbers prohibits spontaneous formation of only alpha peptide bonds between the amino acids since there are random bonds formed in Sidney Fox type scenario (bonds like epsilon bonds).
Similar and even worse problems arise in the formation of nucleotides where the components of the ribose/deoxyribose/pentose sugars can have multiple species and can link to nucleobases in multiple ways. In a pre-biotic environment in the remote chance condensation reactions can take place in an aqueous environment, the homochirality in nucleotides and their polymerization is problematic.
There are plenty of problems for this to happen. Thatâs why spontaneous generation doesnât happen, why Virchowâs claim that âcells only come from other cellsâ always holds, and abiogenesis would have to be a statistical miracle.
But we know without a doubt that orphan genes/proteins do evolve. There is not really any question about this.
When a mathematical model or approach (such as Behe/Snoke or Sanford et al) disagrees with reality, then the thing to do is re-evaluate (and revise, or discard) the mathematical model. Not decide that reality is wrong.
@stcordova, you might want to think about revising your presentations and course to remove the math that so obviously contradicts reality.
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The term is not polarization. And any surface-based catalyst will inevitably be stereo-selective. You can prove this yourself with a lump of modeling clay.
This argument ranks right up there with those that hold that the second law of thermodynamics in some way confounds the theory of evolution.
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Hi @stcordova -
Iâve been thinking about your argument that the strong differences between protein domains prove a lack of common ancestry.
Here is a queen + opposite colored bishops endgame I recently played that ended in a draw:
And here is a very, very different position: a double rook endgame in which I was 2 pawns down as black but managed to swindle a master for a draw by (threat of) perpetual check:
The 2 endgames are radically different, and there is no possible way to transpose between them.
In your opinion, does the stark difference and lack of transposibility of the 2 positions prove that they could not have arisen from a common ancestral position?
Thanks,
Chris Falter
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One canât generalize one example of an orphan as an explanation for another orphan. In the man-made world itâs rather easy to make a new paper weight from something else, not so easy to make a spark plug and engine cylinder from a ceramic bowl and fork.
The other thing is, especially in eukaryotes, there are chromatin modifying complexes such as the Polycomb PRC2. It requires multiple proteins to connect to each other according to the right geometry and even interact with lncRNA HOTAIR. In humans HOTAIR emerges from Chromosome 12 and docks with PRC2 in places like Chromosome 2 and then coordinates modification of a single residue on Histone 3 in a particular location on Chromosome 2 by connecting to PRC2.
One can postulate the evolution of such intricate coordination and connection happens randomly, but for the readers benefit, just look at all the connection sites and domains, that implies proper binding as well as recruitment and assembly and disassembly.
To just say some orphan freak can emerge doesnât explain emergence of proteins that that coordinate to make complexes like PRC2 which act like a concerted machine:
That requires coordinated changes in multiple proteins simultaneously, plus the associated postranslational modifications, not just some freak orphan showing up from an open reading frame getting translated.
And this is just a modest example. Some forms of double stranded break repair that require chromatin remodelling and mutliple checkpoints are probably better examples, but too difficult to describe in this short space. Yet another problem for evolving a system (like eukaryotes) from a creature that lacks chromatin.
Well since I mentioned Double Stranded Break (DSB) repair, here is a paper with lots of diagrams:
https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674(13)00200-6
Creatures (like bacteria) that donât have chromatin would have to evolve DSB repair and other kinds of DNA repair in the context of nucleosomes and chromatin when they evolved nucleosomes and chromatin. Not trivial. A statistical miracle.
When I saw stuff like this, I thought to myself, âcommon descent requires miracles to make it work!â
I take it the moves on the chess board were by intelligent design.
Actually itâs only slight chiral amplification (like 1%), but how long will that last in an open system where what is made is quickly diluted, as in mixing.
And further:
addition to clay interlayers already reacted with amino acid solutions resulted in little or no change in D/L ratio during the time of the experiment.
So an exceptional circumstance is needed for amino acid homochirality. Itâs much worse for nucleotides.