So I take it that you can’t address my post?
It’s not worth addressing.
You simply repeat the assertion that we cannot estimate rareness of protein function in protein space as a defense against the combinatorial problem OOL and evolution face. I disagree and at this point we have beaten this horse dead.
Yockey asserts that proteins are required for the origin of life, but provides no evidence for this assumption. That’s the problem, and one that you probably won’t even address.
3 Likes
It’s not an assumption it is based on empirical data. There is no evidence to counter this claim which was made 50 years ago.
Where is the empirical data demonstrating that the origin of life required proteins?
2 Likes
It is looking at what we consider the current simplest life form which has north of 400 proteins that are required to process energy and self replicate.
Proposing life without proteins is speculation based on the simple to complex model.
The current simplest life form is the product of 4 billion years of evolution. It is not a valid model for the first life form, nor can it tell us anything about how life can originate.
5 Likes
You are reverting to a question begging assertion. The simplest life form we can observe is dramatically simpler than the next jump in complexity. There is no evidence of any evolution here.
The problem is the current evidence does not support your claims and so the argument becomes very difficult.
No, it’s based on an assumption. That life could not be simpler. We don’t have observable data that life could not be simpler. We have observed life be that simple, but that’s not evidence it can’t be simpler still. You really have to get your head around this elementary concept.
Rum you claim to understand logical thinking. You need a little humility as you are also prone to errors.
Look in the goddamn mirror please.
2 Likes
No it’s not. Observing that life today USES proteins to carry out some of it’s functions(and therefore if these proteins are removed the functions fail to occur), is not evidence that life MUST use or be based on proteins to carry out those functions.
That would be like saying that we have empirical data that the only way to tighten a screw is to use a screwdriver because we’ve only ever seen people use screwdrivers to do it. Even if it was true we had only ever seen that, the conclusion obviously doesn’t follow.
3 Likes
yep:
What does that article have to do with the present discussion.
i think that this is the important part:
" Together, these analyses argue against homology of sponge choanocytes and choanoflagellates, and the view that the first multicellular animals were simple balls of cells with limited capacity to differentiate. Instead, our results are consistent with the first animal cell being able to transition between multiple states in a manner similar to modern transdifferentiating and stem cells."
in other words: the first step was more complex than we think.
Wrong. It doesn’t mean that at all, anymore than the fact that humans share common ancestry with other apes means the first life form was an ape.
You guys really need to learn that, if there is no evidence for your position, you don’t just cite random stuff and pretend it is the missing evidence.
1 Like
That’s not first life(as in the origin of cellular life), that’s the origin of animal multicellularity.
As in the first multicellular animals, which also aren’t the first multicellular eukaryotes, or the first multicellular organism. This paper lends zero support to any argument invoked by Bill Cole or you.
4 Likes
It is backed by mountains of evidence
You are making claims about the simplest life form possible, not the simplest one we can observe after life has been on this planet for 4 billion years.
3 Likes
Which is still less than one quarter of the genes in Craig Venter’s synthetic cell Syn3.0 (it has about 470).
The organisms at the origin of animal multicellularity(similar to the ones studies in the previous paper you linked) have over ten thousand. That’s a lot simpler than 100.
Poor Bill Cole, in your attempt to help him you just can’t help but cite papers that “validate the simple to complex model”?
3 Likes
Your funny Rum. 
First of all, we’ve all made high school math errors so I’m not trying to rub anyone’s nose in it. But let’s get back to the original statement:
Tim and Roy - you are arguing that Behe’s assumptions are wrong. That’s a very fair point for discussion, but that is not what Ali was claiming. "If two require … " with Behe’s assumption that they must arise simultaneously, “…then four require …” Behe’s math would be right if his underlying assumptions were right. The claim here was that the math was wrong.
I would apologize if I was wrong.
He does not say the mutations must arise simultaneously, at least if his paid mouthpiece, Casey Luskin, is to be believed (my bold):
As Dr. Behe explained, this was a major point of contention among critics of his book. They claimed that Behe mistakenly thought chloroquine resistance required multiple simultaneous mutations, when in actuality it could arise through sequential mutations, each conferring a successively greater resistance-advantage.
I’m still waiting for my apology.
2 Likes