Evolution is a Fact #27 - Monkeys, Typewriters, Shakespeare, 747s etc.

by cofty 63 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  hooberus

  From the OP

  The genius of Charles Darwin was in recognising the power of natural selection as an accumulator of small random changes.

  Imagine our 10,000 monkeys randomly typing until one of them by pure chance comes up with "When.."

  At that point all the other pages are scrapped and every monkey is given a copy of this page. We observe some more until another monkey adds "shall.." and so on through thousands of iterations. How long would it take to achieve "When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?" Completing the full play now becomes inevitable.

  Evolution is a little bit like that.

  Let’s look at this from another angle.

  How much complexity can random processes reasonably find in a finite amount of time? (Random process first have to find something before it can be selected for.)

  If you have a keyboard of 26 English letters and a “space” bar you have 27 possibilities at each location.

  That means to get the first word “When” it would require on average

  27x27x27x27 attempts

  Thats 531,441 attempts required. With 10,000 Monkeys typing that’s only 53 attempts per Monkey, so that’s easily within the reach of chance.

  However to get just the first two words together “When Shall” the odds become exponentially more difficult.
• 

  hooberus

  “When Shall”

  27x27x27x27 (“When”)

  x27 (space between words)

  x27x27x27x27x27 “shall”)

  The odds then go to:

  2.0 x 10 to the 14th power!

  Even dividing by 10,000 Monkeys

  and you still end up with an average of

  2.0 x 10 to the 10th power of attempts per each monkey required. Which means that it’s impossible for 10,000 Monkeys to generate even a brief “When shall” by random processes.

  
  
• 

  hooberus

  But you might say well we just needed to generate a “When”, and not a “When shall”, then ‘natural selection’ takes over. Indeed in the Opening Post “Monkey Typing Scenario” all that is required is to find just “When” only.

  But how realistic is this for biology? Is say a new functional protein closer to a “When” or closer to a “When shall”, or even more?

  A new functional protein would surely be more analogous to a complete sentence or paragraph than it would be to single word would it not? At least as far as information content.

  What if it’s more analogous to the

  Even some of the evolutionary literature points out the improbability of random processes to assemble functional proteins to possibly be selected for later.
• 

  cofty

  Wow it took you six years to come up with that!

  It's just as if you have never read the OP.

  However to get just the first two words together “When Shall” the odds become exponentially more difficult.

  From the OP..

  Imagine our 10,000 monkeys randomly typing until one of them by pure chance comes up with "When.."

  At that point all the other pages are scrapped and every monkey is given a copy of this page. We observe some more until another monkey adds "shall.." and so on through thousands of iterations. How long would it take to achieve "When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?" Completing the full play now becomes inevitable....

  The illustration is also misleading because it assumes there is an end product that we are hoping to achieve. This is sometimes referred to as the teleological fallacy. Evolution had no purpose in mind. It isn't trying to produce Macbeth or build a human. Whatever works is favoured by natural selection - from bacteria to beetles, it doesn't care.
  
• 

  cofty

  It's nice to know this evidence is still bugging you all these years later.
• 

  hooberus

  Wow it took you six years to come up with that!

  Your point assumes that people spend years thinking about your posts in order to come up with responses. In reality people don’t do that. They might decide to spend their time elsewhere perhaps?

  It's just as if you have never read the OP.

  Actually it’s more like you did not read the post right before your above comment.

  Why don’t you respond to that perhaps since you constantly claim that “evolution is a fact”?
• 

  cofty

  Your objection is answered in full in the OP
• 

  Disillusioned JW

  cofty I just recently read a few posts in this thread (starting from the most recent posts) and I noticed the statement of "... changing its sensitivity from violet light with wavelengths of 405 nm to ultraviolet at 360-370 nm." That is fascinating. I am curious though about the following. In that situation does the bird which inherited the UV sensitivity entirely lack the ability to see violet light? Or, does it instead only lack the ability to see a portion of the violet light spectrum, but have the ability to see other parts of it?

  Many years ago I think I read that some humans can see part of the UV spectrum (the part of it which is closest to violet) and that some humans can see part of the infrared spectrum (the part of it which is closest to red). Is that true?

  Is there a species on Earth which is known to see the light spectrum which includes a portion of the infrared spectrum and extends all the way to including a portion of the ultraviolet spectrum?
  
• 

  Fisherman

  Most creationist arguments can be summarised as "complexity, complexity, complexity - therefore god"

  The issue with the theory of evolution is that it cannot explain how the mechanism of evolution evolved or how it started or what drives it or how the drive started or evolved. And impossible in such a short period of time. Like drawing a random straight flush thousands or billions of times in a row from a deck of cards.
  
• 

  cofty

  DJW - The detailed understanding of the specific genetic mutations that tweek light sensitivity is really amazing. It's a brilliant example of science at its best.

  I don't know the answer to your question about human differences. It's entirely possible. The thing to keep in mind is that mutations are random but selection is not. In the case of birds an ability to see particular colours has a selective advantage so it tends to survive into future generations. A human who has a similar mutation is no more likely to prosper or have more offspring than one who doesn't, So this mutation might disappear just as quickly or continue for a few generations.