Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Conversations like these are far more interesting than listening to the latest creationist bible-thumper.

Yes, they are. Although I sometimes find it valuable to re-assess your assumptions based on Creationist challenges, it's just that I haven't heard any substantively new challenges in a very long time. They are all generally rehashes of the same old misconceptions. Like, arguments from incredulity for example Wink

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@Leadfoot,

I understand it quite well and what do you think the chances are of it occurring if there are 1 x 10 ^250 attempts?

Now you are arguing each atom on earth only gets one chance. You are getting closer to understanding your error. Now if you would include the variable of time and every planet in the universe, you might be closer to understanding that the number of attempts is not as small as you think it is. The number of possible outcomes that produce a replicating molecule is unknown but I think it is more likely to be in the 10^10 range than just a single molecule.

Quote:

I never said you only get one chance. Even if every atom on earth got its chance to become that self reproducing molecule (assuming one is even possible), the odds of one of them being a functional combination is still vanishingly small.

You are now just compounding your errors. Every organic chemical on earth gets multiple chances. We have this little thing called time. Even if you assume one chance every couple of weeks that is still a lot chances over a billion years. But wait. You are forgetting that the Earth is only one planet in all the universe. The Earth may have just been one of the lucky planets.

And you are still arguing there is only one possible molecule that replicates.

Quote:

But you can still appeal to statistics yourself. There is nothing that says you might not get lucky on the first attempt. But would you bet on those odds?

There is nothing that says you will win the lottery the first time you play it but would you bet that no one has ever won the lottery the first time they played it? The Earth is one planet out of perhaps 10^30 that are playing this lottery. It could be the Earth was just lucky but your statistics don't prove life didn't start here.

Edit - I should note that your argument for how unlikely life is to start disproves your prediction about ID and life on Mars. Lack of life on Mars may only prove how lucky the Earth was.

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@parados,

Quote:

@Leadfoot,
I understand it quite well and what do you think the chances are of it occurring if there are 1 x 10 ^250 attempts?

As long as you reframe from the name calling childishness I'd be happy to play this math game. But we have to have some rough parameters established to have any credibility.

I'm going to give my side the huge handicap of accepting 500 pairs as a viable solution even though that is unrealistic. I don't have access to a computer program right now that can work numbers larger than what that gives.

As you say, there is a time frame over which it had to occur. I'll accept rosborne's estimate of the self reproducing molecule emergence of about 4 billion years ago. That leaves about .3 billion (300 million) years of earth's history for it to form. Remember that much of that time was while the earth was way too hot to make organic life possible. The actual time available is even shorter if you limit it to the relatively short time period during which the rare conditions that rosborne implied were needed. Even 100 million years is a long time for earth's environment to remain stable but I'll take that unless you can make a case for a different number.

The number of candidate molecules are limited to organic type (as you said) so we need to eliminate others which are the vast majority. I'll do some research and try and come up with a number. Let me know if you come up with one.

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@parados,

Quote:

@Leadfoot,
I understand it quite well and what do you think the chances are of it occurring if there are 1 x 10 ^250 attempts?

We haven't established the number of chances over time yet but if we accept your number above, the chances are easily calculated.

(1/2.3316 * 10^-302) / ( 1 * 10^250) = 4.2889 * 10^51

You can check my math but that's less than 1 chance in over all the atoms in 4 earth's. (There are only about 1* 10^50 atoms in the earth)

Still working on a more realistic set of numbers for chances.

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@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

I'll accept rosborne's estimate of the self reproducing molecule emergence of about 4 billion years ago.

Please bear in mind that I was using a round number, and I'm rounding by several MILLION years. And bear in mind that chemical generations are much much shorter even that bacterial generations which are already very short. Molecules are also much smaller even that bacteria, so the entire potential environment (which may be as small as a lake or pond or puddle sized body of water), is still a huge environment in comparison to the molecules in question. The point being that we're talking about a LOT of time and a LOT of environment for things to happen in.

In any case, here is an interesting article on the subject which you might enjoy: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128251-300-first-life-the-search-for-the-first-replicator

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@rosborne979,

I don't know if you recall the member "real life." He dragged in all the old BS and deceits of the creationists, but he could think on his feet, too, and if you got going in an exchange with him, he dropped all the BS and debated the matter then under discussion.

However, the possibility of an Obama victory in 2008 made him crazy, he haunted the political threads for a while (something he had never previously done) and then he disappeared. To my knowledge, he's not been seen since.

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@Leadfoot,

First of all you are limiting it to Earth. That is like estimating likelihood of someone winning the lottery by limiting it to people named Farqwar. Earth may have been the lucky one that won on the first few tries and we are just the recipients of that luck. You can't calculate odds of someone winning by ignoring all the players. If the odds of winning the lottery are 4 million to 1 and 4 million people play, the odds of there being a winner are not 1 in 4 million.

You are going to give yourself a handicap of only allowing one possible replicating molecule sequence? I wouldn't call that a handicap. I would call it an unrealistic assumption intended to tilt the game in your favor. There are over 10^31 cytochrome molecule types which are the proteins that support oxidation and reduction. Your one molecule only assumption is nothing more than an attempt to make your math look better by limiting it to one winner. Even if we assume that your 500 pair molecule has to make 5 proteins to replicate that would leave us with 120 different ways that single molecule could form and still function. We only need to make the 5 protein codes and then attach them in any order. Seems a simple change to your one molecule only assumption that I am sure you would agree to.

It has been estimated there are over 5 x 10^37 base pairs on the earth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/science/counting-all-the-dna-on-earth.html?_r=0
But that doesn't include all the organic chemicals that are in the environment.

Now we have to come up with an agreement on how many times a day or week will those molecules break down and reform.

Then we need to include all the 10^24 star systems in the known universe to keep this fair.

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@Leadfoot,

And it's less than the top speed of a Tesla which is just as meaningless as comparing it to the number of atoms on Earth.

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@rosborne979,

Understood, but I am also accepting your reasonable hypothesis that the replicating molecule had to have 'evolved' during very different environmental conditions, otherwise it should evolve in current conditions as well. The environment has been largely like it is now for 3.5 billion yrs so that leaves only 1 billion and the conditions during that period were changing rapidly. Took 200 million just too cool enough for liquid water to exist. So I think I'm being more than generous in estimating 100 million years for the necessary environment to exist.

Yes, molecules can be smaller than bacteria (there are exceptions) and we have no idea of the size of the hypothetical self reproducing molecule. I would have to assume it would be considerably larger than your average one. But so far, I've been giving 'rusty' ( why can't I remember his handle?) the benefit of considering individual ATOMS as the possible number of candidates. I hope this discussion doesn't devolve into atomic then quark self reproduction :-)

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Molecules larger than bacteria? You really do crack me up, Bubba. The microscopic world is a mystery to you, isn't it?

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@Setanta,

Quote:

Molecules larger than bacteria? You really do crack me up, Bubba. The microscopic world is a mystery to you, isn't it?

I was just double checking myself on that. It was a misconception than a jr high science teacher passed along to me that I've been meaning to check for decades. She had told us that water in a glass is a single molecule, which is not technically true since the bonds between individual molecules is ionic, not atomic.

Mea culpa on that one.

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@Leadfoot,

Quote:

But so far, I've been giving 'rusty' ( why can't I remember his handle?) the benefit of considering individual ATOMS as the possible number of candidates.

No, you haven't. You have created an unrealistic number and then compared it to the number of atoms on earth. The number of atoms on earth a given period in time are not the possible number of candidates. It is merely you throwing out meaningless numbers.

It also seems you are the one that can't refrain from childish name calling. I don't ever recall calling you a name. I have commented on your arguments but if you can point out where I called you a name, I will be happy to apologize.

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@parados,

Quote:

No, you haven't. You have created an unrealistic number and then compared it to the number of atoms on earth. The number of atoms on earth a given period in time are not the possible number of candidates. It is merely you throwing out meaningless numbers.

What was the unrealistic number I 'created'? If you mean the one I calculated for the single attempt odds of a specific 500 element DNA strand being generated, tell me where the fallacy in the calculation is. This is your last chance to make good on your phony math charge.

I've only used the number of atoms in/on earth to give some feel for the scale of numbers because most people have no idea of the size of numbers in scientific notation. I'm starting to think that includes you.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I don't know if you recall the member "real life." He dragged in all the old BS and deceits of the creationists, but he could think on his feet, too, and if you got going in an exchange with him, he dropped all the BS and debated the matter then under discussion.

Yes, I remember good old "RL". I thought he was a good debater, especially since he was supporting an unsupportable position. I always wondered what happened to him.

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@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

I hope this discussion doesn't devolve into atomic then quark self reproduction :-)

Me too.

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@rosborne979,

As i mentioned above, he became despondent at the thought of Mr. Obama being elected, and left before the 2008 election. He has not been back since as far as i know.

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@Leadfoot,

Quote:

What was the unrealistic number I 'created'? If you mean the one I calculated for the single attempt odds of a specific 500 element DNA strand being generated,

I see you want to continue to pretend that you are omniscient and there is only one specific 500 element DNA strand that could have formed as a self replicating molecule. Of course your odds for one specific molecule with only one attempt are correct. Your assumption that only one 500 element DNA strand will work is nothing but you creating an assumption to match your conclusion.

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@Setanta,

Real life's last post was Wed 13 Aug, 2008 which coincides with the changeover from the old site to new site software. Many members had trouble accessing their old userids on the new site software. Some created new userids. I don't recall real life coming back with an alternate and suspect it would have been picked up on had that been the case.

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@mesquite,

He may have decided not to go to the trouble of getting back in just because he was despondent about the prospect of Mr. Obama being elected. That was the salient feature of his participation in his last days here.

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@Setanta,

That's kind of strange. If he was really interested in what a creator implied I wouldn't think politics would be that big a deal to him.

@parados:
I thought I was being generous by granting you the possibility of a free standing self reproducing molecule. But now you want more, so OK, let's say there are 100 possibilities. That increases your odds (assuming your optimistic specification of 1 x 10^250 chances) to 1 chance in 4.2889 x 10^49.

@rosborne:
While researching RNA enzymes I got a good laugh from the development of the self reproducing ribosome (by modifying an existing ribosome) using 'directed evolution' . No way would they ever use the synonym 'intelligent design' :-)

I haven't been able to track down exactly what they mean by the 'special conditions' that are necessary for it to function. Also could not find the number of nucleotides involved. Let me know if you happen to know.

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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