So let’s take the largest probability here, “a million million random sequences were required in order to stumble upon a functioning ATP-binding protein”. So how many single-mutation neighbors will there be for a 80-amino-acid protein? About 80x3, right? Not all of them producing distinct amino acids. So this is going to take a while. An inordinately long time…
Sorry but I don’t get what you’re trying to say.
I’m asking you to show in what way you think those “obviously ridiculously small numbers” are “problematic for evolution” while using math.
No that would be 19x80 = 1520.
There are 20 different amino acids, so for every one of those 80 positions in the protein there are 19 alternatives.
But what does that have to do with anything? Let’s add here right now that there are many other types of mutations possible than just those that result in single amino acid substitutions. Please factor that into your attempt to show a problem.
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So that raises the question: What does Faizal, like most other psychiatrists and neuroscientists, believe causes the rational thoughts and conclusions of people, with or without mental illness?
Please try your best to make your response relevant, and not a lie.
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Oh dear, did you read this? “Next, several card-carrying proponents of scientism make their case, either by developing and arguing directly for their preferred version of scientism or by responding to objections.”
And lest there be any doubt about what scientism is, we also read in the Oxford post: “Can only science deliver genuine knowledge about the world and ourselves? Is science our only guide to what exists? Adherents of scientism tend to answer both questions with yes.”
Actually, the Wikipedia article named several. You snipped out the names, and then claimed they weren’t there?
On Wikipedia we read: “The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge through careful observation, rigorous skepticism, hypothesis testing, and experimental validation.”
Sounds like “try it and verify it yourself before you believe it”!
Yet none of what you say (above or afterwards) addresses my claim that what I just mentioned is common knowledge! Except this part:
What people? What investigations? Here again is part of what I claim is common knowledge:
“And psychosis and paranoia are symptoms of schizophrenia, for instance, for which people can be prescribed and helped by antipsychotics.”
So pony up, please! Let’s have it on the table, what people? what investigations?
So please point me to one post I made like that, where what I refer to as confirmation does not confirm the claim I make.
No, I concede points, for example, Basilosaurus didn’t have a melon organ, an ion pump is not the same as an ion channel, and so on.
I’m glad to accept good evidence! Only most of what I encounter here is anything but that, like insults, misunderstandings, claims of victory, and speculations on my motives.
Actually, I put a lot of effort into my posts, and try to address each point made, substantially. Please then show me one response I made that had no substance. Let’s have it on the table, please.
Now that we are insisting on substantial replies, and evidence.
And someone may indeed claim victory, if their opponent in a debate seems to be reduced to insults, misunderstandings (or straw men), etc.
Sure, an 80-amino-acid protein resulted in 1 in a million million number, a 93-amino-acid protein resulted in a 1 in 10^24 number, and Axe’s 150-amino-acid section resulted in a 1 in 10^77 number. It scales with length.
No, I won’t’.
I can’t find any reference to conformational changes in the Wikipedia article, though, can you?
That’s why I quote people and articles where you can find statements by those who do have relevant expertise.
It seems I am indeed able to debate the merits of Axe’s paper, if I can find or come up with good answers to peoples’ (scientists!) challenges here. Again, please point me to one point here that has proven conclusive, by the skeptics. And please also explain why it has not been repeated, and insisted on. Linky, linky…
How are you able to determine whether a response constitutes a “good” answer?
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Sure. Go to this post, and then just read on from there. You will find many, many examples.
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10-12 for 80 amino acids, scaled to 150 amino acids, is 10(-12/80)*150) = 10-23. Not 10-77.
That’s a 54 order of magnitude discrepancy.
That is to say, one number is 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 times larger than the other.
Then there was the 236 amino acid Lambda repressor that was estimated to 10-63.
Call me weird but I think this “scales with length” idea is being perhaps oversold to us by quite a bit, and whatever correlation there might exist is fantastically weak at best.
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There was no doubt. You said scientism was the idea that science is the only source of truth. Not me, and not your sources. You.
To be fair, I asked you to name two people who believe that science is the only source of truth. Wikipedia at best names adherents of scientism the way it defines it, but since that’s not the same as believing that science is the only source of truth, it does not meet the challenge.
Thanks.
Maybe. You know what it definitely does not sound like, though? “Science is the only source of truth”: The thing you claim is scientism. That may have to do with this being an excerpt from the article about the scientific method, which, of course, is neither the same as Wikipedia’s concept of scientism, nor the same as yours.
In the one I’m responding to right now you also did this. Like when you say that the article you linked to earlier from Oxford names two or more persons who believe science to be the only source of truth, but then what the article actually claims is that they are proponents of scientism, which by their definition does not include the belief that science is the only source of truth. Or when you quote Wikipedia’s article on the scientific method in support of the claim you made and I challenged, that a dismissive attitude towards regurgitations substituting for study seemed to be very much along the lines of believing that science is the only source of truth, when of course that article says nothing of the sort.
With all due respect, at that point, what use are you to the discussion, if you barely understand any of it, and just dump someone else’s words here anyway? What point is there in talking to you at all, if you bring nothing to the table but other people’s works, none of which you are even a little bit equipped to defend on substance? Why play this silly human telephone game and not just invite those other people here instead?
But you don’t. You just “come up with” quoting people (presumably) more qualified than yourself, and a lot of the time they don’t say what you say they say, with or without the context. You are not coming up with anything, you are just generating responses with little to no actual understanding of the question or the reply you spew out. You are basically like one of those chat bots, except you don’t even collect your users’ data.
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Well, thank you! Here is one exchange of interest:
So I think you were denying what I said, by having a different meaning for “unreasoning causes” than I did. So I retract what I said about you not seeming to be a real psychiatrist, and apologize.
Yet you certainly also should not redefine a person’s terms, and then deny what they said on that basis. And others did not articulate your denial well, they did not say what you just said, at all.
No, you just recently made this point and this connection. What evidence do you have that this is a consensus? You may be aware of the American Association of Christian Counselors. I assure you the association, and the members, don’t subscribe to your view.
Now you’re again making statements I object to. Surely you make a distinction between causes such as mental illness and chemical imbalances in the brain, and rational thinking. Saying the first correspond to unreasoning causes, and the second to reasoning causes, is not a fallacy. It is a disagreement. And psychiatrists do make this distinction, even materialist psychiatrists, and atheist ones, and it is absurd again, to appear to deny this.
This also does support my point, that people generally, and courts and (yes) psychiatrists keep in mind that there may be unreasoning causes for actions and thoughts, when they make a decision. Saying every thought has an unreasoning cause, is for these reasons and others, still a minority opinion. See here for Wikipedia on the demographics of atheism, for instance.
So evolution is a reasoning process? You even use the word “unguided”, which does go along with “unreasoning”.
“unreasoning: not moderated or controlled by reason” (Merriam-Webster here)
That’s what I mean, evolution is an unreasoning cause, an unreasoning process.
Thanks, I’m seeing about 13 million years ago, though. Also I note that Bechly’s challenge is about a window of 5-10 million years, so a divergence 11 million years ago that you mentioned, would just miss that.
And it really has to be within 10 million years, not 11. If it’s 11 million evolution is false?
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I agree. That is why I accuse you of arguing dishonestly. You define terms, like “unreasoning causes” in a deliberately deceptive way to try support your argument. More specifically, you define it one way in one context, then change *your own definition" to something completely different in another context. It’s really weird, that you woulf redrfine your own term in that way.
You, yourself, cited the Mayo Clinic as confirming my position as the consensus. Don’t you remember?
Nope, never heard of them. Why should I care what they think? Are they so numerous and powerful that they, alone, can define the consensus? Why don’t you link to some of their research on how human thoughts are produced.
No, it is an example of your utter inability to think rationally.
You seem to accept that some symptoms of mental illness can be the result of “chemical imbalance.” I understand that to mean abnormalities in the physical and chemical functioning of the brain.
Normal mental functioning, therefore would be the result of “chemical balance”. That is, physical and chemical functions consistent with normal, healthy brain processes. Both are unreasoning causes, in the sense that they they involve nothing more than physical and chemical processes. There is no tiny little being in the brain pushing the molecules about.
(Your argument here is yet another example of your dishonest tactic of changing the meaning of your own term in different contexts.)
Duh, no.
Yes. And the chemical processes of the brain are also “unreasoning causes.” These, in my view, produce our thoughts.
Exactly what contradiction do you see in that?
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Note that you introduce this objection only after previous objections were shown to be incorrect. One straw breaks and you grasp the next. But are you agreeing that Pinguinus impennis has a new body plan, and that the only reason it doesn’t answer Bechlyt’s challenge is that it’s a little bit too old?
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Well, great! From the abstract (I don’t have a subscription to Nature): “The Huayuan biota yields remarkable taxonomic richness, comprising 153 animal species of 16 phylum-level clades dominated by arthropods, poriferans and cnidarians, among which 59% of species are new.”
So about 90 new species, does anyone know how many Cambrian species were found previously? I’m having trouble coming up with that number…
I don’t know offhand. Why? Is 90 not “many”?
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Well, the claim turned out to be that 90 new Cambrian species refutes the statement I made that new Cambrian fossils were unlikely to be found. Hence the need to find out what percentage 90 new fossils represents, versus all previously found fossils.
Dude doesn’t even know that 90 > 0.
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Wrong.
High school wrong.
Also irrelevant.
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Actually I found the points I checked so far to be incorrect, I’m seeing a divergence of about 13 million years, not 11. And then I just realized that the range you gave was outside of Bechly’s range. And I have no idea what these flippers are like, so I was just taking your word for it.