Inconvenient mathematics for "no-God" biologists

[tmellin]

Let’s say there are an average of 15 atoms in one complete (DNA) base (for example guanine or cytosene). Nothing about individual atoms makes them “automatically” assemble into bases but let’s say that they randomly do so at a rate of is 126840 per second per “life-planet” (I think that’s generous). This would yield approximately 10^12 base pairs per year per life-planet, assuming they all find each other and stick together (hmmm, well let’s just say they do). Let’s also make the reasonable assumption that they are forming in the same place(s) on the planet.

Let’s say there are about 1 million base pairs in a bacteria DNA molecule. Since base pairs do not “themselves know” how to form a DNA molecule, we must leave this to chance as well. Let’s throw in the phosphate group and sugar molecule backbone for free (wow, a HUGE concession in this mathematical “competition”) and say–without opening a new design discussion–that the “laws of physics make the double helix structure happen”

Just like there are 24 unique sequences in which four people can line-up (4x3x2x1, or 4-factorial), there are 1 million-factorial ways for 1 million base pairs to form a double helix. Since the phosphate/sugar backbone does not force any particular sequence, we must count all of them.

1000! is approximately equal to 10^2568. 1000000-factorial is approximately 105,565,708 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factorial). A typical human DNA molecule contains about 200 million base pairs.

Let’s say that all 10^12 base pairs form full bacteria DNA molecules every year (we’ve never seen this happen in a lab, but let’s just go with it). That’s 10,000 full bacteria-length DNA molecules per year. Let’s say that there are 10^12 sequences (out of the 105,565,708 possible million-base-pair sequences) that would correspond to viable bacteria DNA molecules (in other words: a trillion viable bacteria species). That’s one out of every 105,565,696 molecules that form.

At this rate, it would take an average of 105,565,692 years for each life-planet to produce ONE viable bacteria DNA molecule. Astronomical evidence points to an age of the universe as a mere 10^10 or so years. The mathematics here utterly destroys the “life all over the universe” claim for the astonomically-knowledgeable among us.

Even if we assume that the entire mass of Earth is in the form of DNA base pairs that can form DNA molecules (preposterous, even for the staunchest “life is random” people), that’s still only effectively 10^59 base pairs per year (assuming each randomly participates in a whole new DNA molecule permutation every millisecond; 'wouldn’t be that quick), knocking the average time for one viable bacteria DNA formation down to “only” 105,565,645 years per planet. That’s not 5 and a half million years, folks, that’s 1 with five and a half million zeroes after it years!

The “magic wand” that can be waved here, of course, is “well, life obviously happened on Earth, so now we can move into the discussion of bacteria reproduction, and evolution from bacteria to plant and animal life.”

OK. How much time would it take to grow the DNA molecule up to 200 million base pairs (human scale), eventually landing on the right sequences for the 23 unique human DNA bundles (chromosomes), waiting for all of the intermediate forms of life time to eat/sleep/reproduce/mutate/adapt etc?

The average time to go from the DNA of a bacterium to the DNA of a human through “favorable accidents” and mutations would be even more incomprehensibly large than the time to go from atoms to viable bacterium DNA. (Note: the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle–consistent with all nano-scale experiments for 60+ years now–knocks out “natural selection” on an atomic/molecular scale)

Yet, once again, this unimaginably unlikely longshot has happened on Earth! It’s no wonder so many well-educated people (especially scientists and mathmeticians) can see nature itself–in particular human life–as evidence of the supernatural. Thus, sound human reasoning about that which we can see (nature) necessarily leads to faith in that which we cannot see (supernatural).

 

[Lujack]

You can’t really prove it that way, unfortunately. The counterargument is that if things had turned out any other way, we wouldn’t be here to see it. The second counterargument is that in an infinite universe (which many atheists believe in), life had to arise somewhere.

What it comes down to in the end is that it will be, as always, a matter of faith.

 

[Touchstone]

Let’s say there are an average of 15 atoms in one complete (DNA) base (for example guanine or cytosene). Nothing about individual atoms makes them “automatically” assemble into bases but let’s say that they randomly do so at a rate of is 126840 per second per “life-planet” (I think that’s generous). This would yield approximately 10^12 base pairs per year per life-planet, assuming they all find each other and stick together (hmmm, well let’s just say they do). Let’s also make the reasonable assumption that they are forming in the same place(s) on the planet.

Uh, the laws of physics make these nucleobases assemble. Guanine, for instance, has a formula – C5H5N5O – which is not an accident, but and function of the molecular bonding properties of each of the constituent elements. That means if you have carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen available under the right chemical conditions, you will see guanine synthesized, in quantity.

We have a couple known recipes available for the synthesis of guanine – see here, for example, or Fischer-Topsch synthesis. It’s just chemistry… automatic. If you have the right chemical conditions, synthesis happens, automatically.

Let’s say there are about 1 million base pairs in a bacteria DNA molecule. Since base pairs do not “themselves know” how to form a DNA molecule, we must leave this to chance as well. Let’s throw in the phosphate group and sugar molecule backbone for free (wow, a HUGE concession in this mathematical “competition”) and say–without opening a new design discussion–that the “laws of physics make the double helix structure happen”

The basic recipe is thought to look something like this.

1. pre-biotic conditions enable the formation of basic monomers as the “building blocks” to work with (amino acids formed from “Miller-Urey” soup – methane, ammonia, hydrogen).
2. Polymers formed from monomers.
3. Phospholipids combine to form lipid bilayers, the “raw materials” of a cell membrane (and this is not controversial chemically, as it is observed to form spontaneously when the phospholipids are available in the correct lengths).
4. Nucleotides polymerized into RNA fragments, bootstrapping replication.
5. Catalytic differentials in resulting ribozymes produce more and more efficient peptidyl transfers, and thus production of small proteins.
6. oligopeptides from 5 complex with RNA to produce greatly enhanced catalytic efficiencies, giving rise to the original ribosomes, the basis for scalable, efficient protein synthesis.

For all of these, the right chemical conditions have to be in place, but the chemistry isn’t magic, it’s a function of physics. We need not calculate how long the universe or planet would “cycle randomly” build a million-base-pair genome as a freak assembly from a bunch of base elements floating around. Indeed, that would likely take an unimaginably long time to happen by chance. Instead, we understand the outlines of a progression, a sequence of increasing organization, starting from raw elements to monomers to polymers to polymerized RNA to protein synthesizing ribosomes.

Just like there are 24 unique sequences in which four people can line-up (4x3x2x1, or 4-factorial), there are 1 million-factorial ways for 1 million base pairs to form a double helix. Since the phosphate/sugar backbone does not force any particular sequence, we must count all of them.

Ok, so you are going from “atoms” to “bacterial DNA” strands in a single, stochastic process? Why would you contemplate that? By the time you have any bacterial DNA, you by definition have a replication process in place. A strand of RNA or DNA just floating in some chemical soup isn’t going to lead anywhere on its own. Instead you have a progression like outlined above the produces very small-scle, rudimentary protein synthesis, and increasing complexity over time with the numebr of trials and variations accumulating geometrically. At some point, you have to factor in the combination of cell media and membrane as the host for the nucleus and its genetic information/replication – the basic architecture of a cell.

Your thinking about an infinite number of monkeys each being tested to see if they write Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The process theorized is a cumulative one, which completely alters (and obviates) your math here. Once you have a proto-bacteria (or proto-prokaryotes) replicating, the game is totally changed. Reproduction rates are fantastically high, and once you have a critical starter set, the can multiple into the billions of individuals in a very short period of time.

1000! is approximately equal to 10^2568. 1000000-factorial is approximately 105,565,708 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factorial). A typical human DNA molecule contains about 200 million base pairs.

Let’s say that all 10^12 base pairs form full bacteria DNA molecules every year (we’ve never seen this happen in a lab, but let’s just go with it). That’s 10,000 full bacteria-length DNA molecules per year. Let’s say that there are 10^12 sequences (out of the 105,565,708 possible million-base-pair sequences) that would correspond to viable bacteria DNA molecules (in other words: a trillion viable bacteria species). That’s one out of every 105,565,696 molecules that form. A single bacterium reproducing once every 20 mins (and this is common for bacteria) can produce more than 1 billion progeny 10 hours later. So clearly, once a viable genome is in place with a replication system, a time span of billions of years produces uncountably large numbers of individuals.

continued anon…

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

At this rate, it would take an average of 105,565,692 years for each life-planet to produce ONE viable bacteria DNA molecule. Astronomical evidence points to an age of the universe as a mere 10^10 or so years. The mathematics here utterly destroys the “life all over the universe” claim for the astonomically-knowledgeable among us.

OK, so you are thinking that the the process looks like this: chemical soup → bacterial DNA??? If so, the numbers are way too low. But it doesn’t matter, because that’s crazy talk as a vision of origins for bacteria. Instead of poofing out of some chemical brew as bacterial DNA (which wouldn’t do much anyway without the cellular infrastructure to sustain it – metabolism, etc.), maybe consider what scientists infer from the evidence we do have: that the polymerization of nucleotides produces crude machinery for protein synthesis and replication. With an abundance of raw materials, and an abundant source of energy (the sun, or thermal vents in the sea if you like that hypothesis), you have the makings of rudimentary synthesis and replication by trillions of trillions. Everything that happens builds step-wise from what came before it. No “million monkeys at their typewriters” needed.

Even if we assume that the entire mass of Earth is in the form of DNA base pairs that can form DNA molecules (preposterous, even for the staunchest “life is random” people), that’s still only effectively 10^59 base pairs per year (assuming each randomly participates in a whole new DNA molecule permutation every millisecond; 'wouldn’t be that quick), knocking the average time for one viable bacteria DNA formation down to “only” 105,565,645 years per planet. That’s not 5 and a half million years, folks, that’s 1 with five and a half million zeroes after it years!

The “magic wand” that can be waved here, of course, is “well, life obviously happened on Earth, so now we can move into the discussion of bacteria reproduction, and evolution from bacteria to plant and animal life.”

No magic wand needed. Just some insight into the gradual, slow, cumulative process of assembling a replicating system from lower-level machinery. Monomers appear on the scene, which provide the “stepping stone” to polymers, which provide the “stepping stone” to nucleotides, which provide the “stepping stone” to small, copyable bits of RNA, which provide the…

When you only need enough time for the next step in a step-wise process, and can build on what has already happened (formation of polymers, for example), the math looks nothing at all like what you’ve sketched out. But that’s an interesting sort of “sci-fi” scenario you’ve constructed there.

OK. How much time would it take to grow the DNA molecule up to 200 million base pairs (human scale), eventually landing on the right sequences for the 23 unique human DNA bundles (chromosomes), waiting for all of the intermediate forms of life time to eat/sleep/reproduce/mutate/adapt etc?

The number of base pairs is no problem at all. It might as well be a billion base pairs or way more - in the billions of years that have elapsed, once there is a replication system in place, adding more base pairs is not a problem. The Amoeba dubia, for example has 670 BILLION BASE PAIRS in its genome, more than 200 TIME MORE THAN HOMO SAPIENS. And all that, for a UNICELLULAR ORGANISM. Accumulating base pairs is not a barrier, especially when you can accumulate all the inactive genes you want. It’s just chemistry; if a huge section gets skipped, it gets skipped.

The average time to go from the DNA of a bacterium to the DNA of a human through “favorable accidents” and mutations would be even more incomprehensibly large than the time to go from atoms to viable bacterium DNA. (Note: the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle–consistent with all nano-scale experiments for 60+ years now–knocks out “natural selection” on an atomic/molecular scale)

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?? This makes no sense at all. Maybe you can explain what you mean here?

In any case, genome sizes grow (and shrink) in a variety of ways, but just consider the case of, say tetraploid or hexaploid organism (e.g. wheat). Through a case of failed meiosis, a diploid species will produce diploid (rather than haploid) gametes, producing zygote that is tetraploid – instant doubling of the genetic material. Repeat that process, but just for one of the pairs in the tetraploid species, and the result is a hexaploid offspring. 3x the size, in no time at all. That is by no means a complete inventory of methods for genome size changes, but it should suggest the problem that inheres in your math above.

Yet, once again, this unimaginably unlikely longshot has happened on Earth! It’s no wonder so many well-educated people (especially scientists and mathmeticians) can see nature itself–in particular human life–as evidence of the supernatural. Thus, sound human reasoning about that which we can see (nature) necessarily leads to faith in that which we cannot see (supernatural).

I do think that if your description of the process is the way it must have happened naturally, that there’s a problem. But it’s not even a crude approximation of the process that biologists advance and have fit to the data available. If this is your own material, I suggest there’s some massive restructuring to do. If this is borrowed from some creationist site, it’s worth sending them a note saying they’ve not done their homework on the relevant theories here.

-Touchstone

 

[RobbyS]

You can’t really prove it that way, unfortunately. The counterargument is that if things had turned out any other way, we wouldn’t be here to see it. The second counterargument is that in an infinite universe (which many atheists believe in), life had to arise somewhere.

What it comes down to in the end is that it will be, as always, a matter of faith.

Yes, but whose faith? We only know the life that is here on this earth. That is why they are digging around on Mars, trying to find evidence of life elsewhere.

 

[RobbyS]

OK, so you are thinking that the the process looks like this: chemical soup → bacterial DNA??? If so, the numbers are way too low. But it doesn’t matter, because that’s crazy talk as a vision of origins for bacteria. Instead of poofing out of some chemical brew as bacterial DNA (which wouldn’t do much anyway without the cellular infrastructure to sustain it – metabolism, etc.), maybe consider what scientists infer from the evidence we do have: that the polymerization of nucleotides produces crude machinery for protein synthesis and replication. With an abundance of raw materials, and an abundant source of energy (the sun, or thermal vents in the sea if you like that hypothesis), you have the makings of rudimentary synthesis and replication by trillions of trillions. Everything that happens builds step-wise from what came before it. No “million monkeys at their typewriters” needed.
No magic wand needed. Just some insight into the gradual, slow, cumulative process of assembling a replicating system from lower-level machinery. Monomers appear on the scene, which provide the “stepping stone” to polymers, which provide the “stepping stone” to nucleotides, which provide the “stepping stone” to small, copyable bits of RNA, which provide the…

When you only need enough time for the next step in a step-wise process, and can build on what has already happened (formation of polymers, for example), the math looks nothing at all like what you’ve sketched out. But that’s an interesting sort of “sci-fi” scenario you’ve constructed there.
The number of base pairs is no problem at all. It might as well be a billion base pairs or way more - in the billions of years that have elapsed, once there is a replication system in place, adding more base pairs is not a problem. The Amoeba dubia, for example has 670 BILLION BASE PAIRS in its genome, more than 200 TIME MORE THAN HOMO SAPIENS. And all that, for a UNICELLULAR ORGANISM. Accumulating base pairs is not a barrier, especially when you can accumulate all the inactive genes you want. It’s just chemistry; if a huge section gets skipped, it gets skipped.
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?? This makes no sense at all. Maybe you can explain what you mean here?

In any case, genome sizes grow (and shrink) in a variety of ways, but just consider the case of, say tetraploid or hexaploid organism (e.g. wheat). Through a case of failed meiosis, a diploid species will produce diploid (rather than haploid) gametes, producing zygote that is tetraploid – instant doubling of the genetic material. Repeat that process, but just for one of the pairs in the tetraploid species, and the result is a hexaploid offspring. 3x the size, in no time at all. That is by no means a complete inventory of methods for genome size changes, but it should suggest the problem that inheres in your math above.
I do think that if your description of the process is the way it must have happened naturally, that there’s a problem. But it’s not even a crude approximation of the process that biologists advance and have fit to the data available. If this is your own material, I suggest there’s some massive restructuring to do. If this is borrowed from some creationist site, it’s worth sending them a note saying they’ve not done their homework on the relevant theories here.

-Touchstone

You assume a lot here. I am not saying that you are wrong, do we really know enough to think we can just rewind the tape when there are so many “gaps” in it? The time factor has always been the problem of evolutionists, because no matter how long the “tape.” it is still not long enough given what we do know at the present time. Perhaps if we finally learn to synthesize life, then you can look back, fill in the gaps and speculate on the "lab’ that brought it forth in the first place. My guess is that you need a break through as radical as the “discovery” of DNA. Such things do happen. A hundred years ago, quantum theory was newly on the scene. Maxwell’s stuff was just being integrated.
Today we still haven’t come forth with something like Newton’s laws to pull it all together. Bilogists are so defensive about evolutionbecause they really don’t HAVE the anwers.

 

[gerard811]

You can’t really prove it that way, unfortunately. The counterargument is that if things had turned out any other way, we wouldn’t be here to see it. The second counterargument is that in an infinite universe (which many atheists believe in), life had to arise somewhere.

What it comes down to in the end is that it will be, as always, a matter of faith.

The second counter-argument is weak. It’s just another form of the gambler’s fallacy. Even if life had to arise somewhere, it is still a long shot that we’d be part of it.

 

[Touchstone]

You assume a lot here. I am not saying that you are wrong, do we really know enough to think we can just rewind the tape when there are so many “gaps” in it? The time factor has always been the problem of evolutionists, because no matter how long the “tape.” it is still not long enough given what we do know at the present time. Perhaps if we finally learn to synthesize life, then you can look back, fill in the gaps and speculate on the "lab’ that brought it forth in the first place. My guess is that you need a break through as radical as the “discovery” of DNA. Such things do happen. A hundred years ago, quantum theory was newly on the scene. Maxwell’s stuff was just being integrated.
Today we still haven’t come forth with something like Newton’s laws to pull it all together. Bilogists are so defensive about evolutionbecause they really don’t HAVE the anwers.

You know I don’t see “defensive” at all; rather, a sense of amazement at how things are accelerating and integrating, particular in the last 10 years, with the breakthroughs in genome cataloging and gene informatics. As far as abiogenesis, it’s quite unlikely we will ever recover sufficient evidence to say “this is the path of historic abiogensis”. We can expect to create plausible “recreations” in the lab from raw materials with simulated environmental factors (e.g. thermal settings that providing heating/cooling as we find in deep sea thermal vents), but even with success, that won’t establish that as THE way it happened, just a way that demonstrates the development process. Perhaps one (or more) process(es) will be discovered that demonstrate a big leap; automatic synthesis of ribosomes from polymerized RNA fragments, say. That would be a breakthrough, but forensically wouldn’t satisfy the creationist.

And really, creationist math like provided in the OP don’t cause defensive so much as eye rolls. No one supposes that abiogenesis requires atoms->fully assembled DNA or worse, functional bacteria. Like everything else after, the system develops gradually, and slowly, and the bacteria we have to work with now are much more advanced than the rudimentary organisms that got the process going.

Modern cells, for example, have “lipid bilayers” that form the barriers to the outside world, and these are quite efficient barriers – too efficient in terms of abiogenesis; proteins are required to move molecules across and through their surfaces. Way back in the process however, the hypothesis is the obvious one: life didn’t start with lipid bilayers and protein transport, but developed from much simpler mechanisms.

Fatty acids, which form into stable vesicles spontaneously in all sorts of chemical environments, would be permeable to organic molecule, small ones, anyway. And that’s just what’s needed – a “porosity” that allows for resource exchange without protein mediation. These vesicles, then, able to asborb and integrate resources around them, need nothing more than thermodynamics to incorporate other fatty acids floating free in the area – a very rudimentary way of “eating”, and thus of growing.

This growth produces larger vesicles that are branched and tubular in shape, and prone to subdivision by mechanical processes – being crashed on the rocks by a wave, for example. Very rudimentary, nothing more than the motion of a wave and the resistance of a rock needed to “subdivided” a large vesicle that has grown.

That’s just a quick sketch of one part of the process as envisioned by contemporary biologists who study abiogenesis. But just that segment of the process makes the maths in the OP look silly. What needs to be assembled in terms of DNA for the development of these vesicles that “eat”, “grow” and “subdivide” in their rudimentary, primitive ways? Naught.

These fatty acid vesicles have no “genetics” as laid out thus far. But spontaneous formation of polymers inside the vesicle are “trapped”, as the vesicles are not permeable to these polymers due to their size, but only permeable to the smaller nucleotide monomers. This is the basis for further vesicle growth, including the formation of additional “trapped” polymers, and importantly, a very rudimentary form of competition – vesicles with more polymers will “eat” lipids from other vesicles with less polymers, just as a matter of thermodynamics. Cool, huh? Here, already, we see the prototypes forming for an evolutionary cycle, and we’ve not got any DNA or RNA functioning as such yet.

These insights – the “trapped” feature of formed polymers in a vesicle, for instance – are not just conjecture, but demonstrable empirically (it’s just chemistry!), and these form the “steps” toward the formation of the early proto-prokaryotes that we think of as being the first “modern” organisms. The spontaneous formation of those polymers, and the permeability of those polymers and monomers are not “random functions”, but are simply properties of the chemistry in play – automatic, no cosmic roulette wheels needed.

-TS

 

[RobbyS]

You know I don’t see “defensive” at all; rather, a sense of amazement at how things are accelerating and integrating, particular in the last 10 years, with the breakthroughs in genome cataloging and gene informatics. As far as abiogenesis, it’s quite unlikely we will ever recover sufficient evidence to say “this is the path of historic abiogensis”. We can expect to create plausible “recreations” in the lab from raw materials with simulated environmental factors (e.g. thermal settings that providing heating/cooling as we find in deep sea thermal vents), but even with success, that won’t establish that as THE way it happened, just a way that demonstrates the development process. Perhaps one (or more) process(es) will be discovered that demonstrate a big leap; automatic synthesis of ribosomes from polymerized RNA fragments, say. That would be a breakthrough, but forensically wouldn’t satisfy the creationist.

And really, creationist math like provided in the OP don’t cause defensive so much as eye rolls. No one supposes that abiogenesis requires atoms->fully assembled DNA or worse, functional bacteria. Like everything else after, the system develops gradually, and slowly, and the bacteria we have to work with now are much more advanced than the rudimentary organisms that got the process going.

Modern cells, for example, have “lipid bilayers” that form the barriers to the outside world, and these are quite efficient barriers – too efficient in terms of abiogenesis; proteins are required to move molecules across and through their surfaces. Way back in the process however, the hypothesis is the obvious one: life didn’t start with lipid bilayers and protein transport, but developed from much simpler mechanisms.

Fatty acids, which form into stable vesicles spontaneously in all sorts of chemical environments, would be permeable to organic molecule, small ones, anyway. And that’s just what’s needed – a “porosity” that allows for resource exchange without protein mediation. These vesicles, then, able to asborb and integrate resources around them, need nothing more than thermodynamics to incorporate other fatty acids floating free in the area – a very rudimentary way of “eating”, and thus of growing.

This growth produces larger vesicles that are branched and tubular in shape, and prone to subdivision by mechanical processes – being crashed on the rocks by a wave, for example. Very rudimentary, nothing more than the motion of a wave and the resistance of a rock needed to “subdivided” a large vesicle that has grown.

That’s just a quick sketch of one part of the process as envisioned by contemporary biologists who study abiogenesis. But just that segment of the process makes the maths in the OP look silly. What needs to be assembled in terms of DNA for the development of these vesicles that “eat”, “grow” and “subdivide” in their rudimentary, primitive ways? Naught.

These fatty acid vesicles have no “genetics” as laid out thus far. But spontaneous formation of polymers inside the vesicle are “trapped”, as the vesicles are not permeable to these polymers due to their size, but only permeable to the smaller nucleotide monomers. This is the basis for further vesicle growth, including the formation of additional “trapped” polymers, and importantly, a very rudimentary form of competition – vesicles with more polymers will “eat” lipids from other vesicles with less polymers, just as a matter of thermodynamics. Cool, huh? Here, already, we see the prototypes forming for an evolutionary cycle, and we’ve not got any DNA or RNA functioning as such yet.

These insights – the “trapped” feature of formed polymers in a vesicle, for instance – are not just conjecture, but demonstrable empirically (it’s just chemistry!), and these form the “steps” toward the formation of the early proto-prokaryotes that we think of as being the first “modern” organisms. The spontaneous formation of those polymers, and the permeability of those polymers and monomers are not “random functions”, but are simply properties of the chemistry in play – automatic, no cosmic roulette wheels needed.

-TS

Careful you don’t insist on the gradualism. Anything that happens in the lab is the result
of our actions, and these are necessarily not gradual. Gradualism was a product of the reaction to catastrophism by Darwin and others. Ironically, all kinds of catastrophes are
regularly discussed in popular science journnals. The history of our planet was violent, just like the history of mankind. Darwin, like most Victorian gentlemen, found the notion somewhat distasteful.

 

[Touchstone]

Careful you don’t insist on the gradualism. Anything that happens in the lab is the result
of our actions, and these are necessarily not gradual. Gradualism was a product of the reaction to catastrophism by Darwin and others. Ironically, all kinds of catastrophes are
regularly discussed in popular science journnals. The history of our planet was violent, just like the history of mankind. Darwin, like most Victorian gentlemen, found the notion somewhat distasteful.

I’ll consider myself duly cautioned! Thank you. Just so we’re clear, I don’t have any trouble with catastrophic events, and am quite comfortable with the idea of a comet/asteroid, for instance, pushing the “species reset button” once or twice (or more) in our natural history.

By “step-wise”, which is a term I try to use consciously, and avoid “gradualism”, I mean that even if we had a “catastrophic electrical storm” across the face of the earth for some reason, and that was the catalyst for some kind of key development in abiogenesis, it’s still just chemistry, just physics at work. I don’t see a “magic lightning bolt” hitting the right puddle, and turning methane and hydrogen into bacteria in one zap! Rather, an event like that, catastrophic as it may be otherwise, may be a “kick” to the next stepping stone in a many-stepped process.

I’m convinced that the story of biological development on earth is one of fits and starts – long periods of (near) stasis, punctuated by catalyzing events. An external asteroid of sufficient size would totally rearrange the natural dynamics and species development, I understand. On the other side, the development of the eye, or other faculties may be a long time coming, but once arrived, those “innovations” can lead to fairly quick changes and disequilibriums. Even then, the “burst” or “explosion” like we see in the Cambrian is a relative term; we are still talking about millions of years elapsing between evolutionary milestones – faster by a lot than the previous 500 million years, perhaps, but still step-wise, and gradual in terms of being boringly “automatic”, non-magical, law-based.

-TS

 

[tmellin]

…The second counterargument is that in an infinite universe (which many atheists believe in), life had to arise somewhere…

Lujack,

Olber’s paradox put a scientific end to Newton’s notion of the infinite universe quite a while ago. Present day scientists explain ubiquitous cosmic microwave background radiation and expansion of the universe (observed via red-shifted light from distant galaxies) as being consistent with a (finite mass-energy) “Big Bang” happening about 10 billion years ago.

Tom

 

[tmellin]

Uh, the laws of physics make these nucleobases assemble. Guanine, for instance, has a formula – C5H5N5O – which is not an accident, but and function of the molecular bonding properties of each of the constituent elements.

Touchstone,

Thank you for the wealth of information which I had not seen. This discussion can become “recursive”: person A saying there must be a design behind DNA, person B says “that’s just chemistry”, person A says, “OK, there’s a design behind the chemistry”, person B says, “that’s just physics”, etc.

My point is the same as yours: DNA does not form accidentally at all. It is, among all of the mathematically possible particle permutations, an incredibly organized one, so incomprehensibly unlikely to occur (and evolve) that we cannot use “natural selection” or other macroscopic concepts in Biology to explain it. There is indeed an underlying design here.

Tom

 

[Touchstone]

Touchstone,

Thank you for the wealth of information which I had not seen. This discussion can become “recursive”: person A saying there must be a design behind DNA, person B says “that’s just chemistry”, person A says, “OK, there’s a design behind the chemistry”, person B says, “that’s just physics”, etc.

My point is the same as yours: DNA does not form accidentally at all. It is, among all of the mathematically possible particle permutations, an incredibly organized one, so incomprehensibly unlikely to occur (and evolve) that we cannot use “natural selection” or other macroscopic concepts in Biology to explain it. There is indeed an underlying design here.

Tom

Fair enough. Racing ahead then, it reduces to “whence the ‘design’ of the physical laws”? If we can agree that oxygen and hydrogen bind to make water in a “non-random” fashion, we have the basis, conceptually, for the emergence of all kinds of complexity, even a system like we have on earth, filled with all manner of life and organisms. Where does the “wetness” of water come from? It didn’t come from hydrogen, or oxygen. What then?

That pushes things right into metaphysics. That is, into inscrutability. Is it simply impossible for you to conceive of such complexity and order as emergent properties of impersonal, self-sufficient physical law? Well, you are unavoidably a deist/theist, then, QED. If not, then agnosticism/atheism is an option (you may be a theist for other reasons than this, of course).

But I’m happy to agree that there is a ‘design’. The question is then pivoting around what ‘design’ implies. I see a falling raindrop through the sky as ‘designed’, too, though. It implements a constraint-based optimization of its configuration based on physical law. Gravity, aerodynamics, the chemically properties of water and other physical factors all conspire to “design” a raindrop when it falls.

Humans are very complex raindrops, in that sense. We are optimized and honed into a very complex physiology by the constraints of our environment, just like an extremophile bacterium is surviving in a deep sea thermal vent is, or a bat using echo-location to navigate and hunt for food. For a given physical context there is some set of constraints that apply, and thus some set of designs that work. Unguided, nature has a pretty humble toolbox in executing its fitness search function, so you don’t see things like axles and wheels on animals, but rather, those features which can be “designed” in a step-wise, incremental fashion, using available resources.

You believe the “design” of physical law cannot be self-sufficient, or impersonally provisioned. Fine. I don’t think that’s a necessary conclusion, but neither can show that it’s not the case – it’s beyond the empirical horizon for us. But if we can agree, that whether or not life and its wonders were “intelligently designed” or are simply emergent properties of impersonal, self-sufficent law, there are pathways that connect “diffuse atoms” to the formation of animals like you and me, albeit across time spans of billions of years, I think we have sufficient accord.

-TS

 

[Leela]

Let’s say there are an average of 15 atoms in one complete (DNA) base (for example guanine or cytosene). Nothing about individual atoms makes them “automatically” assemble into bases but let’s say that they randomly do so at a rate of is 126840 per second per “life-planet” (I think that’s generous). This would yield approximately 10^12 base pairs per year per life-planet, assuming they all find each other and stick together (hmmm, well let’s just say they do). Let’s also make the reasonable assumption that they are forming in the same place(s) on the planet.

Let’s say there are about 1 million base pairs in a bacteria DNA molecule. Since base pairs do not “themselves know” how to form a DNA molecule, we must leave this to chance as well. Let’s throw in the phosphate group and sugar molecule backbone for free (wow, a HUGE concession in this mathematical “competition”) and say–without opening a new design discussion–that the “laws of physics make the double helix structure happen”

Just like there are 24 unique sequences in which four people can line-up (4x3x2x1, or 4-factorial), there are 1 million-factorial ways for 1 million base pairs to form a double helix. Since the phosphate/sugar backbone does not force any particular sequence, we must count all of them.

1000! is approximately equal to 10^2568. 1000000-factorial is approximately 105,565,708 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factorial). A typical human DNA molecule contains about 200 million base pairs.

Let’s say that all 10^12 base pairs form full bacteria DNA molecules every year (we’ve never seen this happen in a lab, but let’s just go with it). That’s 10,000 full bacteria-length DNA molecules per year. Let’s say that there are 10^12 sequences (out of the 105,565,708 possible million-base-pair sequences) that would correspond to viable bacteria DNA molecules (in other words: a trillion viable bacteria species). That’s one out of every 105,565,696 molecules that form.

At this rate, it would take an average of 105,565,692 years for each life-planet to produce ONE viable bacteria DNA molecule. Astronomical evidence points to an age of the universe as a mere 10^10 or so years. The mathematics here utterly destroys the “life all over the universe” claim for the astonomically-knowledgeable among us.

Even if we assume that the entire mass of Earth is in the form of DNA base pairs that can form DNA molecules (preposterous, even for the staunchest “life is random” people), that’s still only effectively 10^59 base pairs per year (assuming each randomly participates in a whole new DNA molecule permutation every millisecond; 'wouldn’t be that quick), knocking the average time for one viable bacteria DNA formation down to “only” 105,565,645 years per planet. That’s not 5 and a half million years, folks, that’s 1 with five and a half million zeroes after it years!

The “magic wand” that can be waved here, of course, is “well, life obviously happened on Earth, so now we can move into the discussion of bacteria reproduction, and evolution from bacteria to plant and animal life.”

OK. How much time would it take to grow the DNA molecule up to 200 million base pairs (human scale), eventually landing on the right sequences for the 23 unique human DNA bundles (chromosomes), waiting for all of the intermediate forms of life time to eat/sleep/reproduce/mutate/adapt etc?

The average time to go from the DNA of a bacterium to the DNA of a human through “favorable accidents” and mutations would be even more incomprehensibly large than the time to go from atoms to viable bacterium DNA. (Note: the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle–consistent with all nano-scale experiments for 60+ years now–knocks out “natural selection” on an atomic/molecular scale)

Yet, once again, this unimaginably unlikely longshot has happened on Earth! It’s no wonder so many well-educated people (especially scientists and mathmeticians) can see nature itself–in particular human life–as evidence of the supernatural. Thus, sound human reasoning about that which we can see (nature) necessarily leads to faith in that which we cannot see (supernatural).

There are a lot of questioins that science hasn’t yet answered. But I can’s see how any of the above is “inconvenient” for biologists who do not believe in God. Are you suggesting that believers have a “convenient” answer? Of course, they do, “God did it.” A little too convenient, don’t you think? Any time scientists can’t explain something, they should give up trying and just say, “I guess God did it”? How could that ever be a useful scientific hypothesis? The convenience you seem to treasure is only valuable for the intellectually lazy. “God did it” is always convenient, but real understanding is hard.

I haven’t bothered to directly address your probabilistic argument above because it is really irrelevant to whether or not a biologist believes in God. If the probabilities you cited were accurate and really a problem for our current understanding it would mean that we need a better scientific theory to explain what is going on. It would only mean that we don’t currently have a good explanation. It could never mean that what we are studying is simply unexplainable, and we should just give up and claim that God did it.

Best,
Leela

 

[Tamsulosin]

Not being a mathematician,chemist or any type of scientist,(my dad was)and after reading with much interest your descriptions of how matter evolved, a basic question remains:where the first ingredients from which evolution took off came from? In the natural world as we know it,can chemical elements originate from nowhere, spontaneously? If the answer is yes,please provide an example. If the ansswer is no, then it is acceptable to think they may have a "supernatural origin.

 

[Touchstone]

Not being a mathematician,chemist or any type of scientist,(my dad was)and after reading with much interest your descriptions of how matter evolved, a basic question remains:where the first ingredients from which evolution took off came from? In the natural world as we know it,can chemical elements originate from nowhere, spontaneously? If the answer is yes,please provide an example. If the ansswer is no, then it is acceptable to think they may have a "supernatural origin.

Are you wondering where atoms came from? Whereby matter gets created? If so, no one has any idea. We might suppose that matter (or, energy by conversion) is eternal, and the Big Bang is just a cyclic event; when the Big Crunch comes, and our universe collapses, it ‘bangs’ a new in the form of a new universe.

Perhaps.

Or, perhaps there is some Cosmic Mind that can conjure up the “stuff” of a universe ex nihilo.

We don’t know, cannot know, empirically. In that sense, anyone’s guess is as good as anyone else’s. Which is not to say that all guesses are equal in terms of being informed, principled guesses.

But there’s no way to rule out “supernatural origin” as a metaphysical explanation for the existence of our universe.

-TS

 

[Leela]

Not being a mathematician,chemist or any type of scientist,(my dad was)and after reading with much interest your descriptions of how matter evolved, a basic question remains:where the first ingredients from which evolution took off came from? In the natural world as we know it,can chemical elements originate from nowhere, spontaneously? If the answer is yes,please provide an example. If the ansswer is no, then it is acceptable to think they may have a "supernatural origin.

The alternative you’re missing is “I don’t know.” The inability to produce an example of abiogenesis is not evidence that God did it. It just means we don’t know how the first life emerged. Postulating that life has a supernatural origin since we have no satsfying explanation at this time isn’t helpful to science and ammounts to God of the gaps theology. The history has lots of examples where theology once gave supernatural explanations but eventually yielded to science. The battle of science and the god of the gaps has proceeded in only one direction–the god of the gaps has been forced to retreat as science gained ground. So if I were a believer, I would be very hesitant to jump on any gaps in scientific knowledge and claim that that is where God must reside.

Best,
Leela

 

[Tamsulosin]

I could in the same manner mention many instances in which scientists “assured” us
of certain principles that turned out to be all wrong.(The earth not being round?)
In the field of medicine,one day they “inform” us what is good for us,a month later they inform us it was the opposite.
I believe in science and like anybody else I am enjoying the resuts of the many discoveries and advances, but scientists may be a little vain, and knowitalls.As human animals we are limited in our capacity.So we must be open to accept that, and be open minded to the possibility of the existence of other dimensions where spiritually plays a big role.

 

[ricmat]

Any time scientists can’t explain something, they should give up trying and just say, “I guess God did it”?

The quote (or similar variations) has been repeated again and again by arch-evolutionists. It is not an accurate statement.

Those scientists who believe in God would, in any case say “God did it.” But then follow on with “I wonder how God did it?” The door to scientific inquiry is not closed, but is left open as it has been to all those wonderful Catholic scientists to whom we owe such a great debt.

But it is interesting that whenever evolution is questioned as the particular method by which God did it, the arch-evolutionists seem to always leap to that straw-man quote as a defense. For them, it seems, evolution can not be questioned, ever. There are no flaws. There are no missing pieces. There can not be, ever, any discussion of evolution except to praise it and glorify it (excuse the religious analogy here). “If you can’t come up with something better yourself, then you MUST believe that random mutations and natural selection caused complex life.” Any criticism or questioning of the TOE is net with derision and scorn. “Unless you have a PhD in biology, you have no right to criticize. And oh, those who do have PhD’s and criticize are idiots.” etc.

Those scientists who believe in God and continue to ask “How did God do it?” are in fact more open to reason and the proper use of science than those who declare evolution as a closed case. In fact, it is their minds that are closed.

Leela, I’m ranting on here - not particularly against you. But you pushed one of my hot buttons with the quote above.

 

[Leela]

The quote (or similar variations) has been repeated again and again by arch-evolutionists. It is not an accurate statement.

Those scientists who believe in God would, in any case say “God did it.” But then follow on with “I wonder how God did it?” The door to scientific inquiry is not closed, but is left open as it has been to all those wonderful Catholic scientists to whom we owe such a great debt.

But it is interesting that whenever evolution is questioned as the particular method by which God did it, the arch-evolutionists seem to always leap to that straw-man quote as a defense. For them, it seems, evolution can not be questioned, ever. There are no flaws. There are no missing pieces. There can not be, ever, any discussion of evolution except to praise it and glorify it (excuse the religious analogy here). “If you can’t come up with something better yourself, then you MUST believe that random mutations and natural selection caused complex life.” Any criticism or questioning of the TOE is net with derision and scorn. “Unless you have a PhD in biology, you have no right to criticize. And oh, those who do have PhD’s and criticize are idiots.” etc.

Those scientists who believe in God and continue to ask “How did God do it?” are in fact more open to reason and the proper use of science than those who declare evolution as a closed case. In fact, it is their minds that are closed.

Leela, I’m ranting on here - not particularly against you. But you pushed one of my hot buttons with the quote above.

But this thread is not about evolution. It is about the question of how the first life emerged and whether the lack of a satisfactory answer to that question somehow implies that God did it. It seems to me that for those who believe God exists, God creates and sustains everything, and that they shouldn’t resort to “God of the gaps” thinking in only attributing to God that for which science does not currently have satisfactory answers. It sounds like bad theology as well as bad science to me, but then I’m not so sure what good theology is.