Annoying creationists

[kleinman]

Annoying Creationists

Thanks to all of you for the quick probability lesson. Does anyone think that my little thought experiment might reasonably relate to the the probability of the creation of a self-replicating molecule, by random chance, in a sea filled with prebiotic chemicals?

Here’s a simple little computation to consider. Approximately how many atoms are there in the earth?

 

[kjkent1]

Here’s a simple little computation to consider. Approximately how many atoms are there in the earth?

Don't draw it out, Alan. Just run the numbers, so that I can rebut your analysis. I have a slew of other mathematicians here who are chomping at the bit.

 

[kleinman]

Annoying Creationists

Here’s a simple little computation to consider. Approximately how many atoms are there in the earth?

Don't draw it out, Alan. Just run the numbers, so that I can rebut your analysis. I have a slew of other mathematicians here who are chomping at the bit.

You are so lazy. My estimate is 1.25E+50 atoms in the earth. How many of these atoms are carbon?

 

[kjkent1]

You are so lazy. My estimate is 1.25E+50 atoms in the earth. How many of these atoms are carbon?

I'm not lazy, Alan -- I'm busy.

Would it be too much to ask that you provide your entire expert witness report in the same post, rather than one line at a time?

 

[Schneibster]

Wait 'til you get to combinations and permutations, kjkent1. Watch out; there's about a billion ways to "baffle 'em with BS" in that subject.

 

[kleinman]

Annoying Creationists

You are so lazy. My estimate is 1.25E+50 atoms in the earth. How many of these atoms are carbon?

I'm not lazy, Alan -- I'm busy.

Then what are you doing playing around on this forum?

Would it be too much to ask that you provide your entire expert witness report in the same post, rather than one line at a time?

Don’t rush me. I watch Matlock and when he presents his case, he wins it with a dramatic last second testimony (interrupted by a commercial break).

Now that you evolutionarians are considering what the probabilities are to form a complex polymer, I thought it worthwhile to consider how many atoms are available in your probability space. Carbon and nitrogen are trace elements when considering the composition of the earth. There are 11 elements that compose about 99.5% the mass of the earth. That list contains neither carbon or nitrogen. If all the mass of the trace elements in the earth were in the form of carbon, you would have about 1.6E+48 carbon atoms.

So as you consider the probabilities of forming these complex molecules in the primordial soup by chance alone, you will have something to compare these numbers with.

It will become readily apparent that if you don’t have a selection process to evolve a gene from the beginning, your probabilities will be so infinitesimally small of forming these molecules by random chance alone that only the most devout evolutionarian will believe this can happen.

Wait 'til you get to combinations and permutations, kjkent1. Watch out; there's about a billion ways to "baffle 'em with BS" in that subject.

A billion ways? You better use scientific notation.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

It's an easy one to demonstrate, because my classes usually have between 25 and 30 students, and there are always 2 who share a birthday unbeknownst to them.

A stronger coindence happened to me at TAM. I was sitting next to Wollery. A week later I sign on to the forum and notice his name next to mine under birthdays. Eight hundred people sitting in a room is nearly 1600 opportunities for two people sharing a birthday to be sitting next to each other (or 800 if you only count the people on the left and right).

 

[kjkent1]

Then what are you doing playing around on this forum?

Don’t rush me. I watch Matlock and when he presents his case, he wins it with a dramatic last second testimony (interrupted by a commercial break).

Now that you evolutionarians are considering what the probabilities are to form a complex polymer, I thought it worthwhile to consider how many atoms are available in your probability space. Carbon and nitrogen are trace elements when considering the composition of the earth. There are 11 elements that compose about 99.5% the mass of the earth. That list contains neither carbon or nitrogen. If all the mass of the trace elements in the earth were in the form of carbon, you would have about 1.6E+48 carbon atoms.

So as you consider the probabilities of forming these complex molecules in the primordial soup by chance alone, you will have something to compare these numbers with.

It will become readily apparent that if you don’t have a selection process to evolve a gene from the beginning, your probabilities will be so infinitesimally small of forming these molecules by random chance alone that only the most devout evolutionarian will believe this can happen.

This is your third post, and I'm still waiting for you to compute all the probabilities.

I'm sure you've been awaiting this opportunity for a very long time -- so let's get on with the show. Please provide us with the math to show how unlikely is it for a self-replicating molecule to have formed by chance, in your expert opinion.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Goal Post Halftime Report

Highlights of the game so far:

My argument is that the ev computer program shows that this process [the evolution of binding sites by random point and natural selection] is so profoundly slow when realistic parameters are used in the model that macroevolution by this mechanism is mathematically impossible.

So let me get this straight, Kleinman is saying evolution is bunk because it is incompatible with certain results of a simulation? That's rich.

The real problem that you evolutionarians have is not that ev doesn’t include all the different forms of mutations, it is in defining a realistic selection process that evolve genes de novo. There is/are no such selection process(s).

I have not moved any goal posts.

Commentary:

"[The devil] does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature; for he is a liar and the father of lies." (John 8:44, NASB).

 

[Dr Adequate]

It is not biology that I find boring, it is your incoherent, sloppy, poorly thought out and illogical arguments that I find boring.

You remember how I explained to you how lying won't make the facts go away? It still won't.

For someone with a PhD in mathematics, you are demonstrating a striking deficiency in being able to describe natural selection mathematically for evolving a gene from the beginning.

Because I have a training in logic and mathematics, and because I know something about the theory of evolution, I know that the phrase "describe natural selection mathematically for evolving a gene from the beginning" is meaningless gibberish.

Along the lines of "describe the first law of motion mathematically to explain the formation of the solar system from the beginning".

Don't you see, to anyone who knows what the words you're using actually mean, it's just nonsense?

Sheesh, I'm trying to teach a pig to sing again.

You don't have the basic concepts to understand the meaning of the words you're stringing together, any more than a pig repeatedly squealing has a knowledge of melody.

GO AWAY AND LEARN SOMETHING.

Anything. Anything at all about the subjects from which you're plucking a few random words and stirring them into what psychologists call "word salad".

Good to see you using graphics again. However, didn’t I give you directions to the ball park about 40 pages ago so that at least you could see the goal posts?

Having looked "about 40 pages back", I notice that you were drooling out nonsense and halfwitted lies even then.

And that you are still trying to shift the goalposts.

 

[Dr Adequate]

I do not think you have and I do not think you have tried.

Then you are wrong.

I think you choose not to understand even simple points.

Then you are wrong.

Scientists do carefully control the chemicals in their mixtures. Please stop talking as if they do not.

I have never done so, and when you claim that I have ... well, which would you find more courteous: should I call you a moron or a liar? For you are certainly one or the other. Or maybe a bit of both.

To quote articulett:

You gotta love the irony. No one but you is perceiving Dr. A to be claiming that scientists don't control the chemicals in their mixtures ...

And yeah, you gotta love the irony:

I think you choose not to understand even simple points.

And yeah, you gotta love the irony some more:

I did not claim that such reactions take place in a "random" bucketful of chemicals.

And let's just take that irony home and love it all night long:

I think you choose not to understand even simple points.

 

[articulett]

A stronger coindence happened to me at TAM. I was sitting next to Wollery. A week later I sign on to the forum and notice his name next to mine under birthdays. Eight hundred people sitting in a room is nearly 1600 opportunities for two people sharing a birthday to be sitting next to each other (or 800 if you only count the people on the left and right).

Dude! Synchronicity. Hawkeye has the same birthday as James Randi and he quoted her (Hawkeye is a female) extensively in this week's SWIFT! AND when I was at the "critical thinking" workshop at TAM, an attendee grabbed Ray Hall (the speaker) and said something like..."I'm a critical thinker, but on the way out here, I sat next to someone on the plane who had my same birthday, and it was also the same birthday as Meatloaf (the singer!)--What are the odds of that?!" Of course the odds would be improbable if she had predicted such an event beforehand--but there's a pretty good chance all of us sit next to people who share our birthday quite frequently in our lives without ever knowing it. (But not necessarily people as cool as Wollory, Randi, or Meatloaf, of course.)

So are there any cool people out there with a January 11 birthday? Ray Hall says he tells his students to be "coincidence conspiracy theorists".

 

[articulett]

So as you consider the probabilities of forming these complex molecules in the primordial soup by chance alone, you will have something to compare these numbers with.

It will become readily apparent that if you don’t have a selection process to evolve a gene from the beginning, your probabilities will be so infinitesimally small of forming these molecules by random chance alone that only the most devout evolutionarian will believe this can happen.

A billion ways? You better use scientific notation.

You are such a dolt. Random chance? I just linked an article which showed how some elements and molecules in the primordial soup happen to stick to mineral surfaces (like rocks) better than others when water evaporates and/or washes over said rocks. These molecules happen to have a way of interlocking with eachother due to their chirality--which just happens to be the left handed chirality--the one that predominates in life forming molecules. Duh. Life-ish molecules stick together better than non lifeish molecules when energy is added to the system via tides or weather phenomena like the Sun...or meteors. That isn't random chance. You creationists are just utter dolts when it comes to understanding the very basics of evolution. Randomness is what happens to the numerous atoms--but when they stick together--that's SELECTION. When you boil water and there's minerals left in the pan--those minerals have been "selected" by natural processes. Do you get it yet? I thought not. Because creationists like to pretend that scientists think it all happened "randomly". You truly are a deluded, lying simpleton.

Does your "intelligent designer" magnetize the poles with his magic wand--or can we continue to presume that such an event was achieved through natural forces? Is god in charge of electrons? Hewitt's "data streams"? Hammy's mutterings? Your delusion?

 

[The Atheist]

Articulett on ad hominem.

My answer is not an ad hom. I am more than willing to back all my statements about you with evidence-- Ad hominen attacks are attacks of the person rather than the argument.

tsk tsk Go crawl back in your hole.

Or is it more insults and obfuscations ....

A lot of bright people have waded through your BS writings .....

You are such a dolt.......

You creationists are just utter dolts when it comes to understanding the very basics of evolution......

.... You truly are a deluded, lying simpleton.

.....Your delusion?

Arti, summing up her posting style:

So much verbiage; so little content.

 

[Taffer]

Articulett on ad hominem.

Not a single one of these were ad hominem arguments, TA. Ad hom arguments link a personal feature about the arguer too why their argument was wrong. These are simply insults.

 

[Taffer]

What’s your definition of “argument”?

I'm not even going to bother. The good doctor has adequately provided a definition. But FYI, I'm using the standard philosophic definition of an argument.

You must first ask the proper question.

I'm afraid I am only a lowly post-grad student. However, you are claiming that such an account is impossible. This field of evolutionary genetics is very new, and new discoveries are being made all the time. The current hypotheses are being tested as we speak. As Paul C. has explained many times to you, the lack of a current working model, as I am unaware of any completed experiments into the various hypotheses yet, does not mean that it didn't happen. Unless you have some compelling evidence which would falsify these hypotheses?

My apologies, I thought my question was clear. Do you have any compelling evidence which would falsify these hypotheses?

So what is your sieve for generating a gene from the beginning, or do all genes arise through abiogenesis?

Of course they didn't. My 'sieve' is selective pressures of self replicating molecules. Don't you understand this? It is easy to see how genes arrise, but you continue to argue against it. What you should be arguing, if anything, is the hypotheses of abiogenesis, something which I do not deal with.

If these genes have effect, it doesn’t sound like they are silent, inactivated or incomplete.

A 'silent' gene is a gene which does not produce a protein product, and thus does not have a phenotypic effect. Thus, they are indeed silent. You should learn current genetic definitions of words. Additionally, 'inactivated' genes are genes which are transcriptionally inhibited, and incomplete genes are genes which do not have initiation and termination codons, or is a partial copy of another gene.

Do you believe that all genes were formed during abiogenesis? Explain to us what this sieve is that you are talking about that forms molecules whether is be in abiogenesis or for the theory of evolution.

No, I do not believe all genes were created in toto during abiogenesis. I have described mechanisms which would provide selective pressure for the evolution of genes after abiogenesis. I could not possibly speculate about the hypotheses of abiogenesis, as I deal with evolution.

I’m not sure. You are the one who raised the issue of recombination during prophase and that the recombination that occurs during fertilization somehow is not recombination. I was wondering if you would walk us through the process and explain how these different processes affect evolution. Do either of these processes affect the information content of the gene pool?

Oh for the love of...

kleinman, you first brought this up:

The purely naturalistic explanation is that when a sperm fertilizes and egg, this is the recombination step after meiosis.

You have used the term 'recombination' incorrectly. As it is applied to evolution, and genetics as a whole, 'recombination' is a process which happens during meiosis, during prophase 1. I can't even begin to understand what you mean.

Science has told us so far that there is no selection mechanism that would evolve a gene from the beginning. You claim there is. Therefore, it is up to you to describe it. If you can’t, just come out and admit it. On the other hand, I do not claim there is a soul based on science so I owe you no scientific explanation.

Actually, science has provided much evidence that there is. You just think it hasn't. Please see Dr. A's links.

Also, I never said I wanted scientific explanation for the soul, I just want a definition of what a soul is. Come on, it can't be that hard.

Without a selection process, neither abiogenesis nor the theory of evolution are mathematically possible.

You are correct that, without selection pressure, the theory of evolution is not mathematically possible. However, there is and was selective pressure, so that is not a problem. As for abiogenesis, since it does not deal with evolution of anything, it might or might not require selective pressure. You would have to choose one hypothesis for us to discuss, as I am not versed in abiogenesis. I deal only with evolution.

I understand, your scientific arguments require nothing.

Excuse me? What does this mean?

Ok, put together your hypothesis into a coherent mathematical model and explain the theory of evolution. Otherwise, you only have mush here. I’m particularly interested in seeing how you describe natural selection mathematically.

I could quickly answer this, but all my relevent notes are roughly 800km away. However, if you are still interested, when I return to university, I shall post the currently held population genetics equations regarding the effect of selective pressures.

 

[Taffer]

In answer to your new question, "natural selection" does not "evolve a gene from the beginning", as you would know if you knew the first darn thing about the theory of evolution.

This is correct, it does not. But there are selective pressures which would lead to the development of a descrete gene. However, it would be misleading to label those pressures 'natural selection', given the connotations of that phrase.

 

[John Hewitt]

Then you are wrong.

I have never done so, and when you claim that I have ... well, which would you find more courteous: should I call you a moron or a liar? For you are certainly one or the other. Or maybe a bit of both.

The simple point, in question, is that the primordial oceans, as conceived by most people, will have contained not a single molecule of q-beta replicase and virtually none of the substrates that enzyme requires. It seems to me unreasonable to post links to the kind of work innovated by Spiegelman as if they somehow explain the emergence of genes on the prebiotic earth.
Nobody sensible believes that they do and that point seems quite straightforward to me. I think you should either stop posting such links or explain their relevance.

 

[hammegk]

But there are selective pressures which would lead to the development of a descrete gene.

Yeah, that is a question being discussed. What did you say those pressures are?

However, it would be misleading to label those pressures 'natural selection', given the connotations of that phrase.

What do you label them? Er, let me guess ... energy, time, and chance?

 

[Taffer]

Yeah, that is a question being discussed. What did you say those pressures are?

Competition for resources by self replicating RNA molecules.

What do you label them? Er, let me guess ... energy, time, and chance?

Er, no hamme. I would label it "selection", just not "natural selection" as "natural selection" is most often associated with classically classified living things, of which self replicating RNA is not. However, that does not change the nature of the selection, or the outcome.

ETA: "Classically classified". What a horrible description.