Random mutations cannot explain evolution of humans

[Wowbagger]

These quotes in this post are from: http://members.lol.li/twostone/E/psychon.html :

The psychon theory has very concrete consequences, for instance there must be a limit to the number of human souls, which according to the latest demographic data could be even less than 7 billion.

it seems plausible that preventing a dying person forcefully from dying can lead to the death of a baby animated by the same soul.

World population cannot continue to grow as it has in recent decades.

So, if the population does continue to grow, would that refute psychon theory?

If we were to conduct a study on births and deaths, how would we be able to examine the psychons of each person, to see if they are shared or not, to know this was an active mechanism in the world?

The simplest bacteria and viruses are so complex, that the probability for their random emergence is much lower than in the above example, even if all the necessary constituents are available in the right proportion.

Correct. But, Darwin's theory of Evolution is the opposite of random probability. Natural selection is a non-random algorithm of variety pruning in a population. It would actually be expected for complex things to emerge from the algorithm, much faster than random chance, alone.

Why would scientists support a theory that relied on random chance so strongly? Wouldn't such randomness defeat the scientific endeavor? Scientists are not (usually) that stupid! They mainly support algorithms, such as Evolution, which help them make predictions about life forms, that are NOT random.

The information of the genetic code of HIV is less than 2.5 kilobyte. Computer science has shown how little this is. This genetic information can never be enough information for a virus to survive.

Read my previous post. It is NOT "how much" information that matters, but "how it is used". This arguments smacks of personal incredulity. Just because you cannot fathom how it can survive with so little information, does not mean that someone who has studied the virus more than you cannot ever figure it out.

 

[Dancing David]

Physics, jeez, well you can make physics mean almost anything.

 

[wogoga]

DNA is more like a recipe. ... In a cake recipe, for example, there is no one-to-one mapping of a letter in the text to a specific piece in the cake. The whole recipe works, together, to make the whole cake.

In the case of recipes, additional information comes for the persons who read and interpret the recipe in order to make the cake. According to the psychon theory, little biochemical animals (the enzymes) use the DNA as a recipe in order to give birth to other biochemical animals.

If a cook reads in a recipe that 3 kg salt must be used and 3 gram seem to be a reasonable quantity, then the cook will probably use 3 g and not 3 kg. Maybe he will not even notice that there is an error. In a similar way, enzymes are able to ignore and correct errors at all stages of protein synthesis.

In the case of recipes, the additional information introduced by the cook is independent from the recipes. However, in the case of purely materialistic biology, the additional information corresponding to the complex behaviour of enzymes is essentially explained by the same DNA. So apart from information contained in the biochemical machinery of the fertilized egg, this information of the DNA must be essentially enough to determine a human being. And think about the complexity alone of the nexus between around 10^8 photoreceptor cells and the brain.

The suggestion of drkitten in post #111 that the environment in the form of "mother's womb" or of temperature provides additional information seems not reasonable to me. Even if the sex of an alligator depends on the incubation temperature of the egg, the information needed for both the female and the male anatomy (and behaviour) must come from elsewhere and cannot somehow be created by temperature.

So, if the population does continue to grow, would that refute psychon theory?

See: this post.

If we were to conduct a study on births and deaths, how would we be able to examine the psychons of each person, to see if they are shared or not, to know this was an active mechanism in the world?

The relevant quote:

After death and before incarnation, souls exist only potentially and cannot be located in space. There is some evidence suggesting that the soul of a still living person can start a new incarnation. Then the development of the embryo and (in rare cases) baby is paralleled by a disappearing vitality of the person animated by the same soul, and it seems plausible that preventing a dying person forcefully from dying can lead to the death of a baby animated by the same soul.​

I actually do not know how widespread such cases are. As probable examples I consider:

• Michelangelo (1475/03/06 – 1564/02/18) -> Galileo Galilei (1564/02/15 – 1642/01/08)
• Joseph Haydn (1732/03/31 – 1809/05/31) -> Felix Mendelssohn (1809/02/03 – 1847/11/04)
• Bernhard Förster (1843/03/31 - 1889/06/03) -> Adolf Hitler (1889/04/20 – 1945/04/30)
• Joseph Stalin (1878/12/18 – 1953/03/05) -> Vladimir Putin (1952/10/07)

Cheers, Wolfgang

 

[Wowbagger]

In the case of recipes, additional information comes for the persons who read and interpret the recipe in order to make the cake. According to the psychon theory, little biochemical animals (the enzymes) use the DNA as a recipe in order to give birth to other biochemical animals.

What do the concept of psychons add to our understanding of enzymes, that we would not gain from conventional biochemistry?
What new predictions can we test for, using the psychon theory?

The suggestion of drkitten in post #111 that the environment in the form of "mother's womb" or of temperature provides additional information seems not reasonable to me. Even if the sex of an alligator depends on the incubation temperature of the egg, the information needed for both the female and the male anatomy (and behaviour) must come from elsewhere and cannot somehow be created by temperature.

You missed the point: Information is not created by temperature, temperature, itself, is the added information. Temperature (and other environmental factors) together with genetics and physics seems to provide enough information for embryology to play out, so far.

If you insist on adding psychons to the picture, you will have to inform us about what new insights we can gain about embryology, that we could not have learned through those "conventional" factors: environment, physics, genes, etc.

If you are going to try to fight against the Theory of Evolution, you are going to have to enhance your understanding of it. Learn about the theory, from actual evolutionary biologists' point of view. "Know thy enemy!", Etc. Surely you must agree that it is hopeless to fight against something you only have a cursory understanding of?

See: this post.

All scientific theories undergo changes based on evidence, of course. But, those theories considered legitimate also play a role in changing other theories. While psychon theory seems to change quite frequently with evidence, it has not demonstrated any power to alter our understanding of any other theories, itself.

Furthermore, psychon theory seems to be altered in a manner that is analogous to post-hoc reasoning. A good theory makes predictions that can be tested: Sometimes the test passes and sometimes it fails. But, psychons do not seem to offer any sense of testability, so far. So, the ideas behind it are always in flux based on the results of real science going on around it.

I actually do not know how widespread such cases are. As probable examples I consider:

• Michelangelo (1475/03/06 – 1564/02/18) -> Galileo Galilei (1564/02/15 – 1642/01/08)
• Joseph Haydn (1732/03/31 – 1809/05/31) -> Felix Mendelssohn (1809/02/03 – 1847/11/04)
• Bernhard Förster (1843/03/31 - 1889/06/03) -> Adolf Hitler (1889/04/20 – 1945/04/30)
• Joseph Stalin (1878/12/18 – 1953/03/05) -> Vladimir Putin (1952/10/07)

What are the specific empirical mechanisms we can investigate, within these "probable examples"?

 

[wogoga]

On the other hand, there are related proteins of similar form and function, whose amino acid sequences have drifted apart substantially. There are even cases where the completely different amino acid sequences, corresponding to different reading frames of a given RNA sequence (frameshift), result in correct proteins or parts of proteins.​

I know that, too. This is just standard creationist fare. "It's complicated, so it can't have evolved".

The hypothesis that the DNA contains the very specific information concerning protein folding and enzymatic behaviour leads to this problem:

It is extremely improbable that different reading frames of the same DNA can lead to viable protein parts, because a frame shift leads to a more or less random amino acid sequence. ​

In a similar way, it is highly improbable to find a reasonable text which can be transformed into another reasonable text by a character-transformation such as for instance: a -> b, b -> c, c -> d, … z -> a.

In the following I assume that all 20 amino acids are equivalent, ignoring codon bias, stop-codon readthrough and similar. I assume also that a frame shift in a given sequence leads to a fully random sequence.

Let us call viable amino acids sequence a polypeptide which can be part of a protein with enzymatic activity. Assuming a chain of 100 members in the following, let us ask how many sequences are actually viable. Definitely, we can be sure that the answer must lie in between theses two extreme cases:

1. Only one sequence is viable; the probability that a random sequence is viable is (1/20)^100 = 10^-130.
2. All 20^100 = 10^130 sequences are viable; the probability that a random sequence is viable is 1.

In the first case we have an average viability-probability per amino acid of 1/20 = 5% and in the second case 1/1 = 100%.

Now let us assume that the viability-probability per amino acid is 25%. That means that at every position of the chain with 100 members, (because of mutual constraints only) 5 out of the 20 different amino acids can be used for a viable sequence to result. In this case, 5^100 = 10^70 viable sequences exist, and the probability that a random sequence is viable is (5/20)^100 = 10^-60.

The application of a frame shift to these 10^70 viable sequences leads to 10^70 random sequences (according to the simplifying hypotheses mentioned above). Because the probability of a random sequence being viable is 10^-60, we find around 10^10 viable sequences among these frameshifted sequences. Nevertheless, only one out of 10^60 viable sequences is able to produce another viable sequence by frameshift.

What happens however, if the viability-probability per amino acid is 20% instead of 25%, which means that at every position of the chain, 4 out of 20 amino acids are possible for a viable sequence to result. In this case, 4^100 = 10^60 viable sequences exist, and the probability that a random sequence is viable is (4/20)^100 = 10^-70.

So the application of a frame shift to the 10^60 viable sequences leads to 10^60 random sequences. Yet because the probability of a random sequence being viable is only 10^-70, it is highly improbable that one single of these frameshifted sequences is viable. Because actual viability-probability per amino acid seems to be lower than 20%, not even an almighty designer could create one DNA sequence, coding for two viable (100-amino-acid long) protein parts in two different reading frames, because such a sequence is excluded by probability theory.

I'm sure that every unprejudiced person being able to understand the above reasoning must admit: A biology, where the whole evolutionary progress is stored in DNA and to a lower extent in other material structures, is simply impossible from the logical point of view. Whether such a purely materialistic biology has the form of neo-Darwinism or the form of Intelligent Design does not matter.

Cheers, Wolfgang

 

[Dr Adequate]

The hypothesis that the DNA contains the very specific information concerning protein folding and enzymatic behaviour leads to this problem:

It is extremely improbable that different reading frames of the same DNA can lead to viable protein parts, because a frame shift leads to a more or less random amino acid sequence. ​

In a similar way, it is highly improbable to find a reasonable text which can be transformed into another reasonable text by a character-transformation such as for instance: a -> b, b -> c, c -> d, … z -> a.

In the following I assume that all 20 amino acids are equivalent, ignoring codon bias, stop-codon readthrough and similar. I assume also that a frame shift in a given sequence leads to a fully random sequence.

Let us call viable amino acids sequence a polypeptide which can be part of a protein with enzymatic activity. Assuming a chain of 100 members in the following, let us ask how many sequences are actually viable. Definitely, we can be sure that the answer must lie in between theses two extreme cases:

1. Only one sequence is viable; the probability that a random sequence is viable is (1/20)^100 = 10^-130.
2. All 20^100 = 10^130 sequences are viable; the probability that a random sequence is viable is 1.

In the first case we have an average viability-probability per amino acid of 1/20 = 5% and in the second case 1/1 = 100%.

Now let us assume that the viability-probability per amino acid is 25%. That means that at every position of the chain with 100 members, (because of mutual constraints only) 5 out of the 20 different amino acids can be used for a viable sequence to result. In this case, 5^100 = 10^70 viable sequences exist, and the probability that a random sequence is viable is (5/20)^100 = 10^-60.

The application of a frame shift to these 10^70 viable sequences leads to 10^70 random sequences (according to the simplifying hypotheses mentioned above). Because the probability of a random sequence being viable is 10^-60, we find around 10^10 viable sequences among these frameshifted sequences. Nevertheless, only one out of 10^60 viable sequences is able to produce another viable sequence by frameshift.

What happens however, if the viability-probability per amino acid is 20% instead of 25%, which means that at every position of the chain, 4 out of 20 amino acids are possible for a viable sequence to result. In this case, 4^100 = 10^60 viable sequences exist, and the probability that a random sequence is viable is (4/20)^100 = 10^-70.

So the application of a frame shift to the 10^60 viable sequences leads to 10^60 random sequences. Yet because the probability of a random sequence being viable is only 10^-70, it is highly improbable that one single of these frameshifted sequences is viable. Because actual viability-probability per amino acid seems to be lower than 20%, not even an almighty designer could create one DNA sequence, coding for two viable (100-amino-acid long) protein parts in two different reading frames, because such a sequence is excluded by probability theory.

I'm sure that every unprejudiced person being able to understand the above reasoning must admit: A biology, where the whole evolutionary progress is stored in DNA and to a lower extent in other material structures, is simply impossible from the logical point of view. Whether such a purely materialistic biology has the form of neo-Darwinism or the form of Intelligent Design does not matter.

Cheers, Wolfgang

Nice made-up numbers, undefined terms, and unsupported asserions. Good use of the complete non sequitur. And the bit at the end when you declare yourself "sure" that every unprejudiced person will agree with you? It's a masterpiece of self-deception.

 

[bruto]

Repeating Wowbagger's question a different way: Can psychon theory predict a maximum human population for the earth now? If that maximum population is exceeded in the future, will you consider the theory falsified, or will you, as seems habitual here, find a way to redefine failure as success?

In other words, what possible event or finding would convince you that your theory is wrong? If there is no such event, then we're talking about something other than a scientific theory, aren't we?

 

[rocketdodger]

I'm sure that every unprejudiced person being able to understand the above reasoning must admit: A biology, where the whole evolutionary progress is stored in DNA and to a lower extent in other material structures, is simply impossible from the logical point of view. Whether such a purely materialistic biology has the form of neo-Darwinism or the form of Intelligent Design does not matter.

You are being purposefully ignorant, and it is getting old. Numerous people here have told you, explicitly, that nobody who knows what they are talking about has made the claim that the whole evolutionary progress is stored anywhere.

I find it remarkable that someone who claims to know as much as you about biology could be so uneducated in the realm of molecular biology that they think DNA actually stores the information needed to grow and run the human body -- modern science has known, for some time, that it simply helps derive that information when needed.

Does a mass store the information that it should drop when affected by gravity? Does an airfoil store the information that it should lift when propelled through the air? Does wood store the information that it should burn when lit? Of course not. Similarly, DNA does not "store" the information of how any protein should work, or even how proteins should interact with each other -- the laws of nature take care of that automatically once the protein has been assembled.

You are implying that, for example, water molecules "store" the entire structure of every possible snowflake they might come together to form -- a clearly absurd idea.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Wait, is this the same douchebag who made that thread a while back about how there aren't enough reincarnated souls to go around, and that's what's causing infertility and various diseases?

Oh yeah, it is.

Well it's good to know that all my health problems can be explained by something as trivial as the lack of a soul. Now I really wish I hadn't sold mine on eBay.

 

[Reality Check]

The hypothesis that the DNA contains the very specific information concerning protein folding and enzymatic behaviour leads to this problem:

It is extremely improbable that different reading frames of the same DNA can lead to viable protein parts, because a frame shift leads to a more or less random amino acid sequence.
​

In a similar way, it is highly improbable to find a reasonable text which can be transformed into another reasonable text by a character-transformation such as for instance: a -> b, b -> c, c -> d, … z -> a.

In the following I assume that all 20 amino acids are equivalent, ignoring codon bias, stop-codon readthrough and similar. I assume also that a frame shift in a given sequence leads to a fully random sequence.


Let us call viable amino acids sequence a polypeptide which can be part of a protein with enzymatic activity. Assuming a chain of 100 members in the following, let us ask how many sequences are actually viable. Definitely, we can be sure that the answer must lie in between theses two extreme cases:

1. Only one sequence is viable; the probability that a random sequence is viable is (1/20)^100 = 10^-130.
2. All 20^100 = 10^130 sequences are viable; the probability that a random sequence is viable is 1.

In the first case we have an average viability-probability per amino acid of 1/20 = 5% and in the second case 1/1 = 100%.

Now let us assume that the viability-probability per amino acid is 25%. That means that at every position of the chain with 100 members, (because of mutual constraints only) 5 out of the 20 different amino acids can be used for a viable sequence to result. In this case, 5^100 = 10^70 viable sequences exist, and the probability that a random sequence is viable is (5/20)^100 = 10^-60.

The application of a frame shift to these 10^70 viable sequences leads to 10^70 random sequences (according to the simplifying hypotheses mentioned above). Because the probability of a random sequence being viable is 10^-60, we find around 10^10 viable sequences among these frameshifted sequences. Nevertheless, only one out of 10^60 viable sequences is able to produce another viable sequence by frameshift.

What happens however, if the viability-probability per amino acid is 20% instead of 25%, which means that at every position of the chain, 4 out of 20 amino acids are possible for a viable sequence to result. In this case, 4^100 = 10^60 viable sequences exist, and the probability that a random sequence is viable is (4/20)^100 = 10^-70.

So the application of a frame shift to the 10^60 viable sequences leads to 10^60 random sequences. Yet because the probability of a random sequence being viable is only 10^-70, it is highly improbable that one single of these frameshifted sequences is viable. Because actual viability-probability per amino acid seems to be lower than 20%, not even an almighty designer could create one DNA sequence, coding for two viable (100-amino-acid long) protein parts in two different reading frames, because such a sequence is excluded by probability theory.

I'm sure that every unprejudiced person being able to understand the above reasoning must admit: A biology, where the whole evolutionary progress is stored in DNA and to a lower extent in other material structures, is simply impossible from the logical point of view. Whether such a purely materialistic biology has the form of neo-Darwinism or the form of Intelligent Design does not matter.

Cheers, Wolfgang

I have to add my 2 cents worth and agree with the previous posters:
Wolfgang. Please please please learn some basic biology before you make yourself more ridiculous than you already seem.

 

[wogoga]

Nice made-up numbers, undefined terms, and unsupported assertions. Good use of the complete non sequitur. And the bit at the end when you declare yourself "sure" that every unprejudiced person will agree with you? It's a masterpiece of self-deception.

I may sound arrogant, but I'm sure that no-one on earth knows himself better than I do. Therefore I'm also convinced that there aren't many persons which are as sensitive to self-deception as I am.

I have to add my 2 cents worth and agree with the previous posters:
Wolfgang. Please please please learn some basic biology before you make yourself more ridiculous than you already seem.

Could you explain what you do not understand in my reasoning? And if you understand the reasoning, could you explain why you consider it ridiculous?

Cheers, Wolfgang

Big-bang neo-Darwinism is rather the contrary of real evolution in the sense of a continuous increase in complexity of nature. Its central principle is not continuous progress but continuous decay. Therefore it is essentially a theory of a one-time creation from Intelligent Design: The universe was created in a state of the highest order (lowest entropy) and with laws so intelligent that even humans can result from random events of blind downhill processes (transforming less probable configurations into more probable configuration, and decreasing order of the universe as a whole).

 

[Gravy]

I may sound arrogant, but I'm sure that no-one on earth knows himself better than I do. Therefore I'm also convinced that there aren't many persons which are as sensitive to self-deception as I am.

Unfortunately, this is the self-deceptive's credo.

 

[rocketdodger]

Could you explain what you do not understand in my reasoning? And if you understand the reasoning, could you explain why you consider it ridiculous?

Sure.

It is extremely improbable that different reading frames of the same DNA can lead to viable protein parts, because a frame shift leads to a more or less random amino acid sequence.

An intelligent person would expect certain sequences to have a much higher probability of producing something meaningful after a shift than other sequences. Furthermore, an intelligent person would expect to see the mechanisms of evolution encouraging mutations that shift those "lucky" sequences to be carried much more frequently than those that don't. The arbitrary numbers you came up with don't seem to account for any of this.

This is a typical creationist tactic -- use some (what they consider) arbitrary "fancy mathematics" to distract the less educated into forgetting that nature is anything but arbitrary. Your argument here is nothing but a more complicated version of the dishonest "the probability that we suddenly popped into being from a random assortment of atoms is extremely low, so evolution is therefore wrong" argument.

I'm sure that every unprejudiced person being able to understand the above reasoning must admit: A biology, where the whole evolutionary progress is stored in DNA and to a lower extent in other material structures, is simply impossible from the logical point of view. Whether such a purely materialistic biology has the form of neo-Darwinism or the form of Intelligent Design does not matter.

Yes, it does seem impossible. It is a good thing, then, that neither neo-Darwinism nor Intelligent Design suggests anything remotely similar.

This is another of the tired and sad tactics creationists must resort to (although whether it be out of malice or simple ignorance I cannot tell) -- the strawman. We have explained to you over and over why this is a strawman, heck I did in my last post (which you conveniently ignored, I see), yet you continue to vomit it all over the forum. Are you malicious, or just ignorant?

 

[kjkent1]

Could you explain what you do not understand in my reasoning? And if you understand the reasoning, could you explain why you consider it ridiculous?

This is worth some comment.

Creationists, in general, attempt to disprove scientific hypotheses by negation, i.e., such and such cannot be true because the probability of its occurrence is infinitesimally small.

This sort of reasoning is unscientific, because no matter how small the probability of some event may be in advance of its happening, if the event actually occurs, then its probability is instantly raised to Unity (100%).

At any given instant the arrangement of atoms in the universe is incredibly improbable -- were it to be calculated in advance. But, "it is what it is," and so any future probability calculation must be tempered by the reality of what actually exists.

Life is here -- so is homo sapiens. We are sentient beings. So, the question of our improbability is no longer at issue. The only question is "how did we come to be?"

The fossil and genetic record of past and present life shows very clearly that we are here due to the instant effect of random mutation on germ cell DNA, as tempered by environmental pressures (natural selection). This is simply not open to reasonable dispute.

What "is" open to dispute is whether or not those mutations and environmental pressures are the result of mere physical processes, or, some metaphysical catalyst.

If the former, then the scientific method should be capable of completely measuring the activities (except for those activities which are of quantum mechanical character).

If the latter, then NO AMOUNT OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION WILL SUFFICE, because science cannot conclude on a hypothesis that cannot be measured -- and that is the very definition of what is metaphysical.

The set of all things metaphysical and the set of all things physical has no intersection. It cannot, because as soon as something previously believed to be metaphysical is measurable via the scientific method, that something ceases to be metaphysical.

I have little doubt that my monologue here will do anything to stop the constant argument over what randomness is or is not capable. Perhaps, it is simply that randomness "is" God acting within the universe [n.b., lawyers use the term "Act of God" to describe those things over which man has no control, and which cannot be predicted in advance]).

Regardless, the short answer to the question of why your reasoning is "unreasonable," is because you are attempting to apply scientific investigation to prove that which cannot be scientifically proved.

God is simply not amenable to investigation by mere mortals.

 

[Reality Check]

Could you explain what you do not understand in my reasoning? And if you understand the reasoning, could you explain why you consider it ridiculous?

Cheers, Wolfgang

Your reasoning is the same nonsense that everyone on this forum has seen spouted from creationists with no brains (I hope that you are not one of those!). I suggest that you have a look at talk origins for the rebuttal to this.

 

[Wowbagger]

I may sound arrogant, but I'm sure that no-one on earth knows himself better than I do. Therefore I'm also convinced that there aren't many persons which are as sensitive to self-deception as I am.

That's the problem with self-deception: It tends to be self-deceptive!

The only way to know you are not decieving yourself, is for others to put your ideas to the test.

One of the key reasons science exists, in the first place, is because it is impossible for anyone to be sensitive to their own self-deception.

 

[wogoga]

I'm sure that every unprejudiced person being able to understand the above reasoning must admit: A biology, where the whole evolutionary progress is stored in DNA and to a lower extent in other material structures, is simply impossible from the logical point of view. Whether such a purely materialistic biology has the form of neo-Darwinism or the form of Intelligent Design does not matter.

...

Numerous people here have told you, explicitly, that nobody who knows what they are talking about has made the claim that the whole evolutionary progress is stored anywhere.​

You cannot make disappear a logical problem by simply ignoring it. It is impossible to build a tool, a house, a car or something else without corresponding information. The advent of automated machines and computers has shown that even the construction of simple tools needs quite some information.

I find it remarkable that someone who claims to know as much as you about biology could be so uneducated in the realm of molecular biology that they think DNA actually stores the information needed to grow and run the human body -- modern science has known, for some time, that it simply helps derive that information when needed.​

Compare the bone structure of a human with the bone structure of a chimpanzee. Every single bone has several degrees of freedom. And in order to determine a degree of freedom, information is needed. That is simple logic (see also). Or take the pseudo-thumb of the two panda species, which has emerged during phylogenetic evolution in addition to the five fingers. The information that such a pseudo-thumb appears during ontogenetic development must come from somewhere. Or do you suggest that a panda embryo can scan the body of its mother and use this as information?

Does a mass store the information that it should drop when affected by gravity? Does an airfoil store the information that it should lift when propelled through the air? Does wood store the information that it should burn when lit? Of course not. Similarly, DNA does not "store" the information of how any protein should work, or even how proteins should interact with each other -- the laws of nature take care of that automatically once the protein has been assembled.​

Where are the degrees of freedom in your examples? Do you suggest that the fact that a HIV protease cleaves viral polyproteins at twelve different sites is similar to the free fall of a stone or to the burning of wood?

"The HIV-1 protease is a small, 99-amino-acid aspartic enzyme that mediates the cleavage of Gag, Gag-Pol, and Nef precursor polyproteins. These reactions occur late in the viral life cycle, during virion assembly and maturation at the cell surface. The process is highly specific, temporally regulated, and essential for the production of infectious viral particles. … In total, 12 proteolytic reactions are required to generate a mature infectious virion. Each reaction occurs at a unique cleavage site that differs in amino acid composition." (Source)​

A macromolecule like the HIV protease could also not work at all or do uncountable other things instead of cutting amino acid chains. And apart from cleaving viral amino acid chains in a "highly specific, temporally regulated" way, it could cut cellular amino acid chains. And even if something similar to a gravitational force attracts the HIV protease to HIV amino acid chains, where does the information concerning the locations of the twelve cleavage sites (with each a different amino acid composition) come from?

Because the 99 amino acids of the HIV protease are coded by 297 base pairs of DNA or RNA, and one base pair represents 0.25 byte, a genetic information in the order of 75 byte can be attributed to the HIV protease. Sorry again, but from the point of view of pure reason, the assumption that this information could somehow be enough to determine the "highly specific, temporally regulated" behaviour of the HIV protease is more than grotesque!

The whole HIV-RNA is 9749 nucleotides long and codes for a polypeptide of around 3250 amino acids (ignoring overlapping and not used regions). So in principle there may be in the order of 3250^12 = 10^42 different (including chronology) ways to apply twelve cleavages to HIV polypeptides. (It is obvious that more than one of these ways is viable.)

Think about the information needed for and by a robot capable of recognizing and cutting the twelve sites of macroscopic models of HIV polyproteins. And don't forget: the information content of the HIV protease is only in the order 75 byte.

Maybe the following animations can help to recognize that enzymes are in fact animated beings with inborn instinctive behaviour (acquired during biological evolution and representing information): HIV Replication 3D Animation and HIV Lifecycle.

Cheers, Wolfgang

 

[wollery]

 

[Richard Masters]

To the OP. Look up gastrulation, cell differentiation and cell migration.

Regarding your assertion that DNA can't contain the information needed to create a human being, and your flawed conclusions about the compression of information, look up procedural generation.

A small team of enthusiasts created a first person shooter game in 97,280 bytes of information (.kkrieger). These 97K encode information that would require 200-300MB by conventional methods.

That's a factor of over 3000.

However, in the real world there is no need for a physics engine (the world is a physics engine). As was noted before, a lot of the information needed to constrain or guide biological processes doesn't need to be contained in the DNA.

There are also computer genetic algorithms which can produce coherent and complex structures or information over time.

If you combine both methods (evolution and procedural generation,) in either context, you can produce astounding results.

Thus, I disagree with your assertion that random mutations cannot explain the evolution of humans.

 

[Richard Masters]

Would you be so kind as to take this down http://members.lol.li/twostone/E/psychon.html ?

At least take down the section called: "A final devastating argument against reductionism"

Your devastating argument is completely destroyed by a video game. (See previous post.)