Greylorn Ell wrote:Arising_uk wrote:Greylorn Ell wrote:Consider that the probability for the occurrence of a single, small, 900 base-pair human gene is, according to Probability Theory 301, 1.4x10exp-542. For the mathematically non-inclined, write down this number:
A decimal point, followed by 542 zeroes, followed by 14.
There are about 23,000 genes in the human genome. Probabilities multiply. The probability that the entire human genome could have come into being according to the principles of neo-Darwinian evolution is a number that requires about a million zeroes after the decimal point. ...
I'll take your word for it as I'm not that mathematically inclined. However you appear to assume that the human genome is independently developed? Do we not share huge chunks with all the other species and as such should we not consider that a large chunk of the building was done very early on in evolutionary time?
This is a legitimate question, and I'll try to answer it without using math to obfuscate the issues.
To begin with, my simple calculation is time-independent. It makes no difference when the original genes appeared. If they remained unchanged for a billion years, then suddenly mutated up a storm, my simple calculations remain the same.
Suppose, for example, that you set out to beat the successive-heads coin flip record 4 billion years ago and began with 4 successive heads-up flips, probability of 0.0625. Suppose you go out for a beer break and return some time later to flip heads another 4 times. This is the same probability as before, but because you are going for a total record, it is okay to take a break between flips, which means that you multiply the probability for a pair of 4 successive flips. This is exactly the same as the probability for 8 successive flips, 0.00390625.
If your beer break lasts a billion years, the probabilities are the same, provided that you do not flip coins in the interim. If, after a billion-year break you get into a fury of coin-flipping (e.g. The Cambrian Explosion) and flip another 500 successive heads, the odds are the same as if you'd flipped 508 heads the first time around. So, time is irrelevant to such calculations.
Now let's address gene combinations.
Let's suppose that a single 900 base-pair gene came into existence as the result of gene splicing, from two 450 base-pair genes combining. The probability of its assembly would be the result of the probability for each of the 450 pair genes themselves, multiplied, plus the probability for their assembly into the larger gene, also multiplied into the result. (I do not know what the combination probability is, or how it might be calculated. Biologists do not know either, or have kept the secret to themselves.) Nonetheless, the probability for a successfully spliced gene pair is worse than for a single gene coming together on its own.
The probability for a 450 pair gene, multiplied by the probability for another 450 pair gene, is identical for that of a 900 pair gene. The effective combination of two genes reduces the probability,
The same argument applies if a 890 pair gene were to absorb a 10 pair gene. The final probability is worse-- by at least one order of magnitude.
Were you to study the assembly of DNA molecules you would find other factors that make the problem more difficult, and support my statement that the probability math invalidates the "random mutation" aspect of Darwinian theory.
Of course our genes are derivative from those of other critters. Science makes that clear. However, there are plenty of critters on this planet from which humans are clearly not derived. You'll find that the genome of the common fern is more complex than that of a human being. I doubt that the most dogmatic Darwinist would claim that we descended from ferns-- but then, thinking on it, those dorks operate like Jehovah's Witnesses and will make up anything to support their silly theories.
Had I done my calculations for ferns the results would have been worse. But the numbers get even sillier if we check out the net genome for the various bacteria species in the human gut, without which we cannot survive. The calculations of humans, gut bacteria, and ferns will push the evolutionary probability for the entire set into the range of a decimal point, followed by a few trillion zeros, followed by an irrelevant number.
IMO biologists should be ashamed of themselves.
Arising_uk wrote:
Also do not these neo-darwinists themselves have issues about such things as the possible rates of mutation, as I seem to remember punctuated evolution theories and the Burgess Shale reclassifications seem to show great explosions of mutation.
Forget about neo-Darwinists, a gaggle of unimaginative camp followers. Biologists had observed evidence of explosive evolution before Darwin wrote. Darwin was concerned that the evidence of the "Cambrian explosion" would invalidate his theory. It does.
"Punctuated evolution" is a word that neo-Darwinist camp followers use to make it look like they know what's going on, but all they have is a term that describes observations. The term is not an explanation.
As I explained at the outset of this post, my calculation is time-independent, and therefore is also punctuation-independent.
Arising_uk wrote:Greylorn wrote:Scientists regard a relatively high probability such as one chance in 10exp-40 as the standard for impossibility. That's a decimal point followed by only 40 zeroes and an irrelevant number. ...
If only probability theory was a predictive science then all our problems would be solved but its not, its an after the event analysis. For myself, the only impossibilities are the logical contradictions and your empirical standard is just high improbability not impossibility.
Probability is a powerfully predictive mathematical form. If you don't believe me, spend a week in Las Vegas betting against the odds. Or try to run a successful insurance company without hiring a single mathematician.
Quantum mechanics, occasionally dubbed as the most successful theory of the 20th century, is based entirely upon probability mathematics.
Probability theory is used by gamblers, insurance companies, physicists, and may others for its predictive power. You might want to study before you write.
Arising_uk wrote:Greylorn wrote: Yet Darwinists, atheists to a man, insist that their beliefs are scientifically supportable.
Not so, many religious people accept Darwins explanation for how species can occur. In fact without the friar we'd have not had Evolutionary Biology or at least not in this time-frame.
Correction accepted. Thank you!
Arising_uk wrote:Greylorn wrote:Their beliefs are as supportable as a New York skyscraper perched upon a platform of vertical toothpicks.
All Darwin said was that species can be explained by Natural Selection and postulated that a method of inheritance was needed, Mendel proved this and Genetics was born and Crick, Watson and Rosalind Franklin's discovery of DNA put the last block in place for Biology to become an engineering discipline and lends great weight to support Darwin's Theory of Evolution, as does Geology. What do you propose instead?
I propose that you actually study Darwin's original books on the subject, carefully and honestly, instead of parroting the ignorant opinions of Charlie's camp followers. Darwin posited random mutations, mechanisms unknown, as the method of propagating modified genes.
A century later, after the discovery of DNA and the development of technology capable of interpreting it, we are finally capable of doing the calculations which show that his random mutation hypothesis is absurd. I offered one example of such a calculation. Consider wondering why biologists have not taken the trouble to perform it themselves or publish their results in the greater likelihood that they did perform it and did not like the results.
Nice of you to mention Rosalind. I learned about her from TV too. Pretty smarmy of the biologist community to blow her off, but typical of them. Her omission from the historical record might give you a clue about their credibility.
Arising_uk wrote:Greylorn wrote:All conventional beliefs about the beginnings are absurd.
Go tell the cosmologists and astrophysicists.
My book does exactly that.
Let me preface this post by saying I am not getting at you, this is just the sort of criticism that comes with science and to be honest I doubt they would be as polite as I have been, sincerely, I've seen marked PhD theses, they're brutal; in your case it is unlikely a scientist would even take the time to read your book, given your credentials, it's not fair but that is the way it works. And you have to play the game. I am pretty sure they have a fair point to having spent a career doing endless exams and education and dealing with bureacrats to gain finance for essential research. I am not sure they have time to pander to amateurs, or should have to, they probably consider they have more important things to do. Can I also say if anything I find it such a progress in human development to have keen amateurs discussing science and actually enjoying learning about it, when I was a kid the only way that would happen is if you joined some nerd club but now any person with a PC can get right out there and educated it's a wonderful time to be alive in: with that in mind though: and hence with the relevant caveats, you do need some education at some point to really tackle the issues at all well:
The maths is wrong the model does not represent mitosis or meiosis and how DNA replicates nor does it represent a time line over which mutations can accumulate.
It's just nonsense, you need to study how transcriptions actually hapen in the various phases of meiosis and then model that using maths not use base numbers and just wildly build exponential maths out of it without regards to how the sampling and transcription actually takes place and over what time frame you then need to model how certain phases of meitosis transcribe other areas and replicate them to combine genes and then you need to do that over a time frame of say 300,000 years the rough length of time humans have existed on Earth, then of course you need to take accoubt of population migration then you would probably need to begin modelling the intermediate steps like from homo eructus to modern man. Do you honestly genuinely believe that scientists do not and have not run any models remotely that are using correct biological meiosis. mitosis and maths and found that a species could not exist? Because if you really are that naive then I am afraid you need to go to school learn how gene replication works and learn the nuts and bolts polymerisation in enzyme replication and then model that. Otherwise it's just complete guff. Any model that is as top down as you propose is woefully inadequate, you need a nuts and bolts model from the ground up and you need to learn how those nuts and bolts function and to make a realistic time frame in which to run something that at least will approach speciation, you also needd to know when and how mutation can and will occur not just in sperm or egg production but throught out a human beings life as he is exposed to the toxins of life like oxygen and nicotene and whatever. In other words you need at least a degree in biology and a masters or PhD in genetics to even attempt to model cell division let alone speciation. People spend 7 years of their life just learning how to do that before they wax lyrical, and even then they have to put in decades of lab work to get any reliable sort of analysis.
You can't take short cuts like that in science, it wont fly.
Had I done my calculations for ferns the results would have been worse. But the numbers get even sillier if we check out the net genome for the various bacteria species in the human gut, without which we cannot survive. The calculations of humans, gut bacteria, and ferns will push the evolutionary probability for the entire set into the range of a decimal point, followed by a few trillion zeros, followed by an irrelevant number.
This sentence really shows you do not understand the system at any real level. Ferns have been evolving for a least 120 million years humans for just 300,000 and our ancestors perhaps 10 million years. Their ancestors like apes perhaps 20-30 million years which probably explains why they have more chromosomes than humans, at least as is theorized. The number of chromosomes though does not in any way mean that an organism is either more complex or evolved neither do the number of genes relate in any way to how complex a life form is, what is important is the incerements of time, and not the use of ill conceived top down mathematical gibberish; one example of why this number is only a tentative representation is ploidy in plants where the species can multiply its chromosome number from say 36 to 54 or even divide it to 18, this is very common in plants but rarely if ever happens in animals because presumably it is not as evolutionarily fit as it is in simpler life forms such as tomatoes, does your model take account of such things as ploidy not to mention all the other speciation inhibitors or promoters. Nor does arm waving about interspecies diversity at a high school level really explain anything adequately. You need to know what it is you are modeling, when and for how long you can't just read a few internet pages and produce viable science. Human gut bacteria probably have relatives that stretch back 4.7 billion years, are you going to model the archae domain and bacteria kingdoms and what not stretching back 4.7 billion years, and more importantly do you have the data to hand to do so without just making up exponentials that relate to brute force numbers but not time based biology.
The evolutionary consideration is being badly modelled by someone who really isn't qualified to even attempt it. I am pretty sure even Dawkins would bulk at trying to model speciation given the man hours it would take to build a rigorous enough model and that's what he does and has done.
To begin with, my simple calculation is time-independent. It makes no difference when the original genes appeared. If they remained unchanged for a billion years, then suddenly mutated up a storm, my simple calculations remain the same.
There are some gaps in the theory so the hell what you aren't helping science by trying to plug them with sloppy mathematics and poorly reasoned science based presumably on a high school education judging by how much you seem to understand the processes of DNA transcription.
It's quite hard to find every lifeform on earth in fosillised form actually it's probably impossible, perhaps you should wait until a relatively complete genome and timeline are found before you proclaim your theory of non evolution to the world. Unless of course you want to get a qualification and actually stand a chance of doing science or something at least approaching it. Absence of evidence and ireducible biology theories abound outside of science, they also have theories inside of science, which would you take as likely to be more reliable, some amatuer who wrote a book or some guy who had spent 60 years in the field?
Would you take Stephen Jay Gould's word over a high school students no matter how mathematically astute he claimed to be?
A century later, after the discovery of DNA and the development of technology capable of interpreting it, we are finally capable of doing the calculations which show that his random mutation hypothesis is absurd. I offered one example of such a calculation. Consider wondering why biologists have not taken the trouble to perform it themselves or publish their results in the greater likelihood that they did perform it and did not like the results.
There are hundreds of papers that would beg to differ, but then you wouldn't read them because they would derail your sleigh ride down the mountain of imaginative arm waving.
I assume you don't know about speciation models because you haven't got access to journals, well tough, go to any university library get membership and then you will have the information you need if not the training to really prove anything.
http://www.orgs-evolution-knowledge.net ... iation.htm
Here's one I am not saying it explains speciation just that the information is not that hard to find.
I'm probably not qualified to understand most of that but then that is the point isn't it? Are you?
CONCLUSION
Bush (1975) estimates that perhaps one half of all animal species have been formed by processes that do not fit the classical allopatric speciation model. And it is clear from this and other comparative data that parapatric or chromosomal speciation models potentially do fit many of these non-allopatric cases. If the chromosomal speciation and contact hybridization models presented above are valid for a significant proportion of this non-allopatric speciation, then it is likely that the evolutionary patterns and successes of lineages which have proliferated chromosomally have been profoundly influenced by this speciation. Clearly the models [presented in this paper] deserve especially rigorous testing, both through mathematical simulation to verify the logic and to set numerical limits on their parameters, and through detailed comparative studies of the population cytogenetics and evolution of additional natural groups of species to test the many phylogenetic predictions made by these models.
Wouldn't be a bad idea to learn some discretion from the way scientists express hypothetical concerns either. Cart before the horse is saying I did this maths so this is true, maths is not experiment, and especially not when it is based on a completely biologically devoid maths model.
In physics you can probably get away with bunk like string theory because the science is less rigorous about experiment than biology but even then it wont last, no show no go.
Mr Greene: "Yeah there are 11 dimensions and 22 in superstring theory and these are sufficiently compacted to explain how gravity can if you curve space be explained in a quantum mechanical particle model."
Mr Bluee: "Er let me stop you there Mr Greene... Isn't that bollocks?"
MG: "No no it's all explained in the maths take a look."
MB: after perusing the complex mathematics "Ok you have a model, assuming the maths is correct where's the experiments?"
MG: "Well strings are too small to measure and it would take a machine at least 100000 perhaps 1,000,000 times larger than CERN to even approach the energy levels needed to observe string interaction."
MB: "Ooooookay then well don't let the door hit you on your way out, I'll ask the journal if they'll recommend your paper for a Nobel prize but I don't think they'll be very keen."
I'm not sure but you might want to try Bayesian mathematics if you are going to try to model probabilities, because I don't think Gaussian or whatever distribution or something a little less complicated is going to explain the standard deviations accurately in a random system. Just a tip... Good luck with that the maths is a bit of a pig...
You can take anything I said in any way you like, as I said it's not an attack it's just what happens as you probably should know, I am not here to trumpet science as a hero I have worked in it and it is very much human and fallible, but criticism is what makes it a little less shaky than say religion where such things are not allowed on pain of The Daily Mail these days but death in the past.
