Here is the Wikipedia link on him. The Watchtower better get as much milage out of his name as possible while they can because if he starts using his mind to look into the Watchtower like he does in his scientific research he won't be with them very long.
November 2010 Awake argument against evolution: does it make sense?
by behemot 24 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
BurnTheShips
Well, they obviously botched the quote because its completely nonsensical as it is. Lets say the chance that a single beneficial mutation occur is p. Then lets say there are a meager N = 10^30 bacteria on earth. Let C be the number of copies made in a billion years, lets say the bacteria divide 50 times a day. This give approximately C = 10^18. Thus the number of beneficial mutations are about
p*C*N = p*10^48.
Thats a metric shitload of potentially beneficial mutations (consider there is about 10^6 bits of information in the bacteria genomen).
But it gets better since in early-life enviroment bacteria swapped large chunks of genetic information and hence did not assemble "one good mutation at a time"; that throw a giant wrench into the calculation.
He starts with good solid math.
Segues into "metric shitload."
And finishes with swapping large chunks of genetic information (something I wish I was doing presently.)
I think I'm turning ghey for Bohm.
BTS
-
besty
Richard Dawkins discusses the Lenski experiment in his new book "The Greatest Show on Earth"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment
Quoting from Dawkins Chp 5 Pg 130:
Lenski's research shows, in microcosm and in the lab, massively speeded up so that it happened before our very eyes, many of the essential components of evolution by natural selection: random mutation followed by non-random natural selection; adaptation to the same environment by separate routes independently; the way successive mutations build on their predecessors to produce evolutionary change; the way some genes rely, for their effects, on the presence of other genes. Yet it all happened in a tiny fraction of the time evolution normally takes.
Needless to say creationists hate Lenski's work - it shows new information entering the genome without 'Designer' intervention, it demonstrates natural selection combining genes against 'impossible' odds and it undermines' irreducible complexity' - and so the creationists led by one Andrew Schlafly have attempted to undermine the work of Lenski. Lenski tears them a new one - read about their exchange here http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/lenski_gives_conservapdia_a_le.php
-
PrimateDave
Burn is right. Evolution is not a "serial" event but massively parallel and happening everywhere at once. The old "odds are against it" ploy has been used very often by the WTS, and it superficially appears like solid reasoning, which is why they get away with using it on most JWs. It is a "thought stopping" argument, and I am sad to say it used to work on me.
-
Leolaia
But it gets better since in early-life enviroment bacteria swapped large chunks of genetic information and hence did not assemble "one good mutation at a time"; that throw a giant wrench into the calculation.
Exactly.
It isn't the accumulation of advantageous mutations within one lineage but billions of co-existing lineages sharing genetic information. But a guy writing in the early 1970s probably did not know this. Someone writing in 2010 should know better.
BTW, last night there was a really awesome two-hour docu on PBS called "What Darwin Never Knew" (not to be confused with the BBC program called "What Darwin Didn't Know"). Everyone should see it. It shows how much our current knowledge of DNA and the genome is casting light on the mechanics of evolution at ground zero, within the DNA itself and as evidenced in embryonic development.
-
whereami
Thanks for the mention of the PBS docu "What Darwin Never Knew"
-
Billy the Ex-Bethelite
How can it be debunked?
Does Genesis make sense?
Chap 1 says animals were made before Adam. Chap 2 says that after Adam was made, God made the animals. Which came first, the chicken or the Adam?
-
besty
here's what one of my ID-leaning buddies had to say about it:
Yeah, you know I've always thought that bacteria are textbook proof of evolution, they're geared towards rapid evolution.
... or are they? Evolution as defined by Darwin was descent with adaptation. We have adaptation here, but do we have descent? I.E. fish beget funny fish that could breathe and flop beget funny fish that could walk a little beget land creature. Here you have billions of years of eukaryotic evolution occurring in a single earth year. Just because of the sheer volume of bacteria and their propensity to evolve quickly. But never descent, they never evolve into eukaryotes again. We should be seeing a lot more hybridized bacteria that have started to evolve in multicellular creatures, but we don't. Darwin was able to record past descent, but no one has really viewed it since then. It's odd to say the least. I think you could easily write a book detailing why bacterial evolution indicates intelligent design at hand.
Want to be a multi-millionaire and famous quick, write a book "How bacterial evolution proved intelligent design" It'd be required reading for all fundamentalists!
Any takers to challenge his point about descent?
-
cantleave
Best - I would say that natural selection occurs when a new trait develops that provides a competitive advantage for the organism, in the environment in which it lives.
In a static, stable environment even a dramatic change in the organism,( for example the ability of e-coli to metabolise citrate) is not creating an advantage.
If however there is a need to metabolise citrate, in order to over come a change in the environment or capitalise on a feature of the environment (e.g loads of citrate that can be used as a food source), that new characteristic will increase the chances of the organism breeding and passing on that characteristic (genetic code to metabolise citrate).
Therefore, it doesn't matter how many millions of generations occur in a static stable environment, when there is no external driver there is no need for evolution to occur.
I know this a simplistic answer but it is how I understand it.
-
BurnTheShips
Any takers to challenge his point about descent?
Besty, he seems to make no sense. We have evolutionary adaptation in the E Coli lines as evidenced by the ability to metabolize citrate. We also have descent from the original culture. So we have an ancestral population, and we have a descended population.
Also, this makes little sense:
But never descent, they never evolve into eukaryotes again.
These are prokaryotic bacteria from the get-go. They remain so. There is no change in internal structure here, just an adaptation to a single external environmental factor.
Here you have billions of years of eukaryotic evolution occurring in a single earth year. Just because of the sheer volume of bacteria and their propensity to evolve quickly.
No you do not. You have a tiny tiny tiny population of bacteria compared to what the entire planet would have borne in the Archean era. And it was near a billion years before the first, simplest, multicelled organisms, the cyanobacteria, developed. For more complex multicellular life we have to wait a billion years more for the Cambrian explosion.
And here we find something interesting:
Despite tremendous fecundity and exceedingly short generational times, the simplest forms of life are the slowest evolving.
Speed of evolutionary change only ramps up with increasing organic complexity.
A eukaryotic, multi-cellular organism that reproduces sexually will have a far higher capacity for change than these E. Coli.
In fact, look at a geological timeline. Evolutionary change only does one thing: accelerate exponentially. Our biology is the latest product of this process.
BTS