Request for Scientific Review

[ContegoFides]

Any scientists out there who are interested, I’d like a mathematical and/or scientific critique of the assertions made at the following website:

scribd.com/doc/448517/Evolution-What-Are-the-Odds

Note there are some comments on the side that are directed towards a mathematical critique of the poster’s assertions. These critiques appear to be valid, but I think the underlying premise in the post has something to it.

The underlying argument posed at the site is that it is, essentially, mathematically impossible (or at least so improbable as to be impossible) for life to have arisen on its own using pure random chance. The poster appears to believe that this means that life could not evolve from non-life without the intercession of a greater power (i.e., God).

What I’m thinking of is recasting the argument in a more mathematically or scientifically correct way - if that’s possible. It may not be possible, given lack of understanding of how amino acids could combined and eventually form cells exhibiting industrial complexity. Nevertheless, it stands to reason that while 4 billion years is a long time, the number is still quite finite and may be too small to support random chance.

I suspect the counter argument may be that industrial complexity builds on itself as time goes on. However, I’m not sure how much that will hold water scientifically speaking; after all, you have to achieve some measure of industrial complexity in the first place.

I know the basic argument of life from non-life, but to my knowledge the argument has never been positivistically proven; and thus is subject to skepticism in the scientific realm.

To you atheists out there - I’m not interested in proving or disproving God using an argument of probabilities. While I admit that eventually I would like to use this type of argument as merely one argument in a range of arguments that, as a whole, point to God’s existence, I first need to know if the underlying premise is sound before engaging in any kind of metaphysics. For, if the physics or math is wrong, then any rationale supporting metaphysical conclusions based on it (either for or against God’s existence) must also be flawed (i.e., the premise is flawed and thus not helpful to the conclusion).

Same thing to my fellow brothers in Christ: This is no challenge against God or proof for Him, I merely want to enquire if the premise is sound or weak - and if it is weak whether it can be improved so that it is sound.

Accordingly, again, what I really want is a purely scientific or mathematical analysis of the argument posed in the website. From there I might springboard into another, separate, thread discussing metaphysical speculation.

If it helps how you might respond, I have a BS in physics and grew up in a family steeped in science and math, so while I’m no expert in particular scientific or mathematical topics I have a pretty good working scientific knowledge and am quite capable of learning the particularities of most mathematical or scientific issues once I set my mind to it.

Thank you for your time!

 

[DysonSphere]

Dear sir,

This is my opinion, and is mostly speculation, because this is not my primary field of study.

There is a sense in which the probability quoted is too high, too low, and about right.

Given his premises, the quoted probability is likely precise.

His premises contradict modern evolution theory, however. Considering only DNA construction, probabilities for evolution, even for a condition similar to ours, are far higher. Consider “Probability models for DNA sequence evolution” by Richard Durrett for a sufficiently detailed model.

The probability would be far lower if one were to naively consider fine tuning of fundamental constants.

There is one logical problem I find with these arguments, similar to Hume’s problem. There’s no way to really know if the argument really establishes anything.

If someone rolled a six sided die sixty-five times, and got a sequence of numbers, he could argue that getting that exact same sequence would be (1/6)^65 and by Borel’s law should never happen. That means that every night at Craps tables in Vegas is a series of many miracles.

There must be some establishment of purpose that goes beyond the arguments of probability, before suspicion ought to be aroused. That seems a regime for philosophers, theologians, and poets, not for scientists or mathematicians.

 

[DysonSphere]

As a Post Script: There are some basic scientific errors in the author’s work that are not relevant to the main argument. The age of the universe (about 13 billion years, not 30 billion years) stuck out the most.

 

[Black_Rose]

It is chemically and mathematically impossible for life as we know it to arise from “chance”, or more accurately, the geochemical conditions of Earth. Every intellectually honest atheist, agnostic, and materialist should admit this fact! However, proponents of a naturalistic origin of life acknowledge that the first life forms did not have DNA genomes and protein catalysts (like today’s form of life), but maybe based on a different biochemistry. For instance, some propose early life forms used RNA as genetic material and a catalyst, the so-called RNA world hypothesis. In other words, you article seems to be attacking a strawman.

I am agnostic about a naturalistic origin of life since I am unaware of any experiment or series of experiments that demonstrated its feasibility and because I do not possess an in depth knowledge of the field. However, if you are more concerned with argumentation and supporting a preconceived position (such as the naturalistic origin of life is impossible), instead of seeking objective truth, I suggest you study the origin of life. Since there are different hypotheses, and proponents of one hypotheses often attack the feasibility of another hypothesis, then you can utilize all the critiques of various naturalistic origin of life scenarios to argue that it did not happen.

 

[Moscati]

I’ve worked with Bayesian statistics for medical decision making, not this sort of thing, but . . .

From a professional point of view, the author’s snarky tone is a huge red flag. Evolutionary “intellectuals”? Phrases in all caps? No actual citations? Sloppy. It stands to reason that his work may be sloppy as well. You have your work cut out for you trying to ‘science’ it up.

His very first sentence is pretty off. If Wikipedia can be trusted, Borel’s Law does not specify some universal impossible number at all. It’s a formula, with variables (mathematicians love variables!). That means the cutoff point of ‘plausibility’ is entirely dependent on the parameters of the system one is trying to apply the law to.

Since the process, the mechanism by which non-life evolved into life (especially the question of how the cell came to be) is not at all well-understood or described, then how could one presume to know what to plug into the equation?

What the author did is attempt to come up with a universal limit to the probability of anything at all, but it doesn’t hold water. William Dembski has done the same (his cutoff was a more generous 10^150). Again, Wikipedia:

“Another objecton to Dembski’s use of the universe probability is based on the existence of observed specific outcomes of an experiment with arbitrary potential outcomes. For example, if a coin is tossed randomly 1000 times, the probability of any particular outcome is roughly one in 10^300. For any particular specific outcome of the coin-tossing process, the a priori probability that this pattern occurred is thus one in 10^300, which is astronomically smaller than Dembski’s universal probability bound of one in 10^150. Yet the post hoc probability of its happening is exactly one, since we observed it happening.”

Does that make sense? If 10^50, or 10^150, or whatever is the cutoff point of possibility of an event happening, why is it that we can and do observe events happening that are more improbable than that (in Vegas, or elsewhere)?

I’d encourage you to look into Dembski’s work as you pursue this–it’ll be helpful.

 

[ContegoFides]

Gentlemen (or Ladies!)

I greatly appreciate your (name removed by moderator)ut, and understood all of it. It seems that the article might have too many logical flaws to be really useful. I will have to cogitate on this idea some more.

Would it somehow change things if we found that life in the universe is common? If it’s common, then you have many “unrealistic” probabilities occurring, instead of just the one ad-hoc probablility (Earth) that has been observed.

By the way, DysonSphere, I had the great pleasure of actually having dinner with Freeman Dyson back in the late 1980s. He and my father (an astrophysicist) had some mutual interests for a while.

God Bless,

 

[Just_Lurking]

Scientifically, we don’t have any idea how to calculate the probability for the event that is claimed in the link. The first step towards developing such a calculation will likely be a simpler problem for which the answer is already known experimentally. For example, from Lenski’s citrate evolution study of E. coli, we know that the probability that genes to utilize citrate will evolve in 20 years is 1/12 (only 1 out of 12 initial populations developed the trait). Only once this known value can be calculated accurately from a mathematical model will it be reasonable to try to estimate the probabilities for more complicated evolutionary scenarios.

In physics terms, you need to be able to calculate the mass of the proton before anyone will trust your calculation of the mass of the Higgs boson.

 

[hatsoff]

Any scientists out there who are interested, I’d like a mathematical and/or scientific critique of the assertions made at the following website:

scribd.com/doc/448517/Evolution-What-Are-the-Odds

It’s complete nonsense. For example, “Borel’s Law” is not some kind of statistical theorem or observation, but instead refers to a general rule of thumb, from a book by Borel written for the popular press, which he presented in an attempt to communicate a mathematical idea to a lay audience.

Evidently he was not successful.

 

[DysonSphere]

By the way, DysonSphere, I had the great pleasure of actually having dinner with Freeman Dyson back in the late 1980s. He and my father (an astrophysicist) had some mutual interests for a while.

That’s great; I wish I could have been there. I’ve never met the man, but I’ve read some of his writing, and have listened to some interviews, and am very impressed by the deep reasoning that underlies his beliefs, even if I somewhat disagree with them. He is also a scientific Goliath.

I’d love to hear about the conversations, etc., that Dyson and your father had if you wish to PM me.

 

[ContegoFides]

That’s great; I wish I could have been there. I’ve never met the man, but I’ve read some of his writing, and have listened to some interviews, and am very impressed by the deep reasoning that underlies his beliefs, even if I somewhat disagree with them. He is also a scientific Goliath.

I’d love to hear about the conversations, etc., that Dyson and your father had if you wish to PM me.

Sadly, I can’t remember much of the conversation - it was SO long ago. I do remember the place, a restaurant in Solana Beach, CA. He was very gracious and polite, a classic Brit. gentleman. I think we talked about planetary science and space colonization, but I could be wrong. I was still an undergraduate studying for my BS in physics - which seems like ages ago.

Anyway, feel free to PM me if anything strikes your fancy - but I’m afraid that’s all I got on the one time I got to meet the man.

 

[tjm190]

Again with this Carl Sagan and 10^2000000000. He helped form the Drake Equation in which it was assumed that if a planet was suitable for life, the odds of life arising are 100%! Google ‘10^2000000000 Carl Sagan’ (no quotes)- all you get are creationist sites, none of which have a source. I assume what he actually wrote was something more akin to “there are this many pieces to the human genome So, if you disassembled and reassembled it in a random order, the odds that you’d get it right on the first try are 1 in 10^2000000000.” But of course, the human genome didn’t form like that- it formed over a billion years of natural selection, a far from random process. Furthermore, who’s to say the current genome is the only ‘right’ one? Had it turned out slightly different, would we not be human?

Also, when you say ‘the odds are this’ that’s an incomplete statement. When I say 'the odds of heads is 1/2" it is implied I mean “for every flip of a coin.” Well what do they mean? The odds of life occurring are this… for every chemical reaction in suitable locations that take place? For every (unit of time)?

Furthermore, to properly calculate the odds of life occurring, you need to know all the possible ways life could have occurred. I mean, sure the way things turned out was pretty unlikely. But who’s to say life couldn’t have started with a different set of amino acids/proteins and such? So even though this particular scenario is pretty unlikely, a whole bunch of another scenarios could have resulted in life as well.

And Borel’s law is being misapplied- flip a coin 1000 times and record the results and you get a sequence of heads and tails. That sequence had a (1/2)^1000 chance of occurring, or 1 in 1.07*10^301. Yet it clearly just happened!

Bottom line is, they need to show us some calculations is we’re to believe what they take to be the odds of life occurring.

 

[grannymh]

If you like scientific odds, you might enjoy the 151 page book,
Answering the New Atheism, Dismantling Dawkins’ Case Against God
by Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker
ISBN: 978-1-931018-48-7

Blessings,
granny

The human person is worthy of profound respect from the moment of conception.

 

[flyingfish]

The underlying argument posed at the site is that it is, essentially, mathematically impossible (or at least so improbable as to be impossible) for life to have arisen on its own using pure random chance. The poster appears to believe that this means that life could not evolve from non-life without the intercession of a greater power (i.e., God).

This argument is fundamentally flawed.

Evolution does not claim that live arose using “pure random chance”. The process of natural selection, is a process of design. Where of a multitude of features that arose “randomly”, those that were most suited for reproduction/survival ended by being selected for.

Evolution is nature’s design, it’s not the “tornado in a junkyard” that happens to assemble an airplane.

I would not even go into analyzing the person’s particular claims about the size and number of particles. Those claims are irrelevant, because they do not argue against evolution, they argue against something else entirely.

The basic building blocks of life form spontaneously (this has been proven experimentally by putting the basic ingredients of the earth into a container and blasting them with electricity, cell walls also have been formed in such experiments), once you have that, you would need some “randomly” to combine into something that can replicate itself (say RNA), once you have that, natural selection will take over and those best at replicating will move on etc. It’s not inconceivable that in a soup of incomprehensibly large number of building blocks of RNA/DNA like material, at least one molecule of RNA/DNA/something similar should form. Once you have at least one, it will copy itself endlessly.

 

[Black_Rose]

The basic building blocks of life form spontaneously (this has been proven experimentally by putting the basic ingredients of the earth into a container and blasting them with electricity, cell walls also have been formed in such experiments), once you have that, you would need some “randomly” to combine into something that can replicate itself (say RNA), once you have that, natural selection will take over and those best at replicating will move on etc. It’s not inconceivable that in a soup of incomprehensibly large number of building blocks of RNA/DNA like material, at least one molecule of RNA/DNA/something similar should form. Once you have at least one, it will copy itself endlessly.

Do you have any evidence for this claim? I do not think nucleotides could be produced in the chemical environment of prebiotic earth since they are relatively complex molecules.

I just googling and I found this paper by the late Leslie Orgel:

Conclusion

The inevitable conclusion of this survey of nucleotide synthesis is that there is at present no convincing, prebiotic total synthesis of any of the nucleotides. Many individual steps that might have contributed to the formation of nucleotides on the primitive Earth have been demonstrated, but few of the reactions give high yields of products, and those that do tend to produce complex mixtures of products. It should also be realized that any prebiotic synthesis of a nucleotide would yield a racemic product, not the biologically important D-nucleotide. Recent publications, particularly those of Zubay and his coworkers (cited above), suggest that the search for a convincing prebiotic synthesis of the nucleotides is not hopeless. However, the difficulties remain so severe that alternatives to the de novo appearance of RNA on the primitive Earth deserve serious
consideration. The succeeding sections of this review, in addition to discussing possible routes to RNA from a hypothetical source of prebiotic nucleotides, will also consider other ways in which the RNA World could have appeared.

physics.nmt.edu/~mce/Orgel_2004.pdf

Orgel’s comments support my assertion:

It is chemically and mathematically impossible for life as we know it to arise from “chance”, or more accurately, the geochemical conditions of Earth. Every intellectually honest atheist, agnostic, and materialist should admit this fact! However, proponents of a naturalistic origin of life acknowledge that the first life forms did not have DNA genomes and protein catalysts (like today’s form of life), but maybe based on a different biochemistry.

 

[flyingfish]

Do you have any evidence for this claim? I do not think nucleotides could be produced in the chemical environment of prebiotic earth since they are relatively complex molecules.

nature.com/news/2009/090513/full/news.2009.471.html

An elegant experiment has quashed a major objection to the theory that life on Earth originated with molecules of RNA.

John Sutherland and his colleagues from the University of Manchester, UK, created a ribonucleotide, a building block of RNA, from simple chemicals under conditions that might have existed on the early Earth.

…

“This is extremely strong evidence for the RNA world. We don’t know if these chemical steps reflect what actually happened, but before this work there were large doubts that it could happen at all,” says Donna Blackmond, a chemist at Imperial College London.

…

Sutherland points out that the sequence of steps he uses is consistent with early-Earth scenarios — those involving methods such as heating molecules in water, evaporating them and irradiating them with ultraviolet light. And breaking RNA’s synthesis down into small, laboratory-controlled steps is merely a pragmatic starting point, he says, adding that his team also has results showing that they can string nucleotides together, once they have formed. “My ultimate goal is to get a living system (RNA) emerging from a one-pot experiment. We can pull this off. We just need to know what the constraints on the conditions are first.”

…

Shapiro sides with supporters of another theory of life’s origins – that because RNA is too complex to emerge from small molecules, simpler metabolic processes, which eventually catalysed the formation of RNA and DNA, were the first stirrings of life on Earth.

The last part of what I quoted shows that scientists who doubt the RNA hypothesis, hold views about how life originated from basic chemicals that eventually led to RNA. They don’t think God had to personally interfere.

 

[tonyrey]

nature.com/news/2009/090513/full/news.2009.471.html

The last part of what I quoted shows that scientists who doubt the RNA hypothesis, hold views about how life originated from basic chemicals that eventually led to RNA. They don’t think God had to personally interfere.

“think” is the most significant word…

 

[flyingfish]

“think” is the most significant word…

Well, as far as I understand it JPII in particular held a favorable view of evolution:

newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm

**Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. **[Aujourdhui, près dun demi-siècle après la parution de l’encyclique, de nouvelles connaissances conduisent à reconnaitre dans la théorie de l’évolution plus qu’une hypothèse.] It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.

…

I don’t see why you need to believe there was a miracle where God personally intervened in the laws of nature to create RNA. If the RNA formed “by itself” from the basic conditions on the early Earth, as a Catholic you still believe God fundamentally made the universe and everything in it.

That’s certainly how I always understood the Catholic position, and I think that is one of the strengths of the Catholic view vs. Protestant Creationists who essentially have to abandon science to maintain their beliefs.

 

[tonyrey]

Well, as far as I understand it JPII in particular held a favorable view of evolution:

newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm

Evolution by Design not blind processes…

I don’t see why you need to believe there was a miracle where God personally intervened in the laws of nature to create RNA. If the RNA formed “by itself” from the basic conditions on the early Earth, as a Catholic you still believe God fundamentally made the universe and everything in it.

That’s certainly how I always understood the Catholic position, and I think that is one of the strengths of the Catholic views. Protestant Creationists who essentially have to abandon science to maintain their beliefs.

The point is that RNA did not form by itself any more than the origin and development of life occurred by themselves. Catholics do not believe God caused the Big Bang and then left things to run by themselves, taking no further interest in the proceedings. That is the deist’s view. Neither the origin of life nor the RNA code can be adequately attributed to fortuitous combinations of molecules…

 

[grannymh]

Evolution by Design not blind processes…

The point is that RNA did not form by itself any more than the origin and development of life occurred by themselves. Catholics do not believe God caused the Big Bang and then left things to run by themselves, taking no further interest in the proceedings. That is the deist’s view. Neither the origin of life nor the RNA code can be adequately attributed to fortuitous combinations of molecules…

Please put “Catholics do not believe God caused the Big Bang and then left things to run by themselves, taking no further interest in the proceedings.” into a positive statement. Catholics believe in what kind of interest? active? sustaining? continuum of creative power? I am not interested in God’s interest as being a “god of the gaps”.

Wouldn’t God’s “further interest” exist objectively whether or not science could explain the phenomenon?

Blessings,
granny

I am looking forward to the day when Catholics can figure out that the human person is top priority in the Genesis account of creation.

 

[flyingfish]

Evolution by Design not blind processes…

You mean God specifically performed miracles in the course of evolution? I don’t see why Catholic theology would require it. God designed the laws of nature, anything that they produce is of God’s design.

The point is that RNA did not form by itself any more than the origin and development of life occurred by themselves. Catholics do not believe God caused the Big Bang and then left things to run by themselves, taking no further interest in the proceedings. That is the deist’s view. Neither the origin of life nor the RNA code can be adequately attributed to fortuitous combinations of molecules…

Well, the main difference between the deist and the theist view isn’t really in whether God miraculously intervened (in addition to creating the world) to create things like RNA.

The main difference is in God’s involvement in human affairs, such as revelation, such as sacraments and so on.

You can certainly believe as a Catholic that God did not specifically intervene in evolution, but his intervention ended at being the source of the physical laws. What you have to believe though is that God revealed himself to man, died for our sins etc. That’s the main difference with this and deism.

If scientists set up early earth conditions and create the building blocks of RNA in a lab, I mean that certainly eliminates the need for a special miracle. But as a Catholic I don’t see why you have to believe it.

From my perspective it would seem you should rejoice in this view, because it is vastly superior to the Creationist/Intelligent Design views that contradict science.