Posts by hooberus

this thread is about some issues/problems that i have found on the site.. note: this thread is specifically about the talk origins site (and not others sites nor persons), if you can't keep to the subject please do not post here.

hooberus

Under the "Must-Read Files" section on the Talk. Origins ("Exploring the Creation/ Evolution Controversy") site (http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-mustread.html) an item appears:

______________________________________________________________________________________

Introduction to Evolutionary Biology

This essay is a must-read for anyone who wants to participate in talk.origins. It lays out the land for evolutionists and creationists alike, presenting the ideas behind and the evidence for biological evolution.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

This arcticle (as it implies) does present a fairly detailed account of the evolutionary interpretation of biology. However, when it comes to the issue of "critics" of evolution this "must-read" ," introduction" arcticle which supposedly "lays out the land for evolutionists and creationists alike" introduces us to scientific creationism by stating:

Scientific creationism is 100% crap. So-called "scientific" creationists do not base their objections on scientific reasoning or data.

24

Talk Origins internet site

by hooberus in

jw
friends

"talk origins" http://www.talkorigins.org is frequently used as a resource for origins research for laymen.

the site claims to be "exploring the creation evolution controversy" i believe that many people consider that it is an objective, accurate resource.

this thread is about some issues/problems that i have found on the site.. note: this thread is specifically about the talk origins site (and not others sites nor persons), if you can't keep to the subject please do not post here.

hooberus

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/welcome.html

Before posting to talk.origins, you are strongly encouraged to review the Talk.Origins Welcome FAQ and the Talk.Origins Archive's FAQ. If you post to talk.origins with a question or challenge that has already been answered by one of the many FAQs , you will probably be met with scorn.

On the above boxed "Talk.Origins Welcome FAQ" we are told:

To really impress the regulars, come prepared with a scientific Theory of Creation.

The ToC is the Holy Grail of the origins debate - everyone talks about it, but no one's ever seen it. If you argue against evolution, or imply in any way that creationism is scientific, then you can count on being asked to supply a theory. A scientific theory must have predictive value, must be internally consistent, must be falsifiable, and must explain at least those phenomena explained by the currently dominant theory. Thus, such statements as "God created the heavens and the earth..." are not theories, as they are neither predictive nor falsifiable.
While no one has ever presented a scientific theory of creation to us, we maintain that it is necessary for an honest comparison of various ideas of origins. Because of the properties listed above, theories provide specific points for comparison of the explanatory value of different ideas. Without a predictive, falsifiable theory of creation, it remains impossible to objectively evaluate the idea of creation.

This is a strange claim since creationist publications have presented such things (one by Dr. Gish even appears in the anti-creation book "But is it Science"). Even more interesting is when another Talk Origins arcticle wishes to argue for evolution and against the creation theory (with supposed fossil evidence), a theory that "no one's ever seen" then apparently appears: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html#pred

Predictions of creationism and of evolution

Before launching into the transitional fossils, I'd like to run through the two of the major models of life's origins, biblical creationism and modern evolutionary theory, and see what they predict about the fossil record.
Most forms of creationism hold that all "kinds" were created separately, as described in Genesis. Unfortunately there is no biological definition of "kind"; it appears to be a vague term referring to our psychological perception of types of organisms such as "dog", "tree", or "ant". In previous centuries, creationists equated "kind" to species. With the discovery of more and more evidence for derivation of one species from another, creationists bumped "kind" further up to mean higher taxonomic levels, such as "genus", or "family", though this lumps a large variety of animals in the same "kind". Some creationists say that "kind" cannot be defined in biological terms.
Predictions of creationism: Creationists usually don't state the predictions of creationism, but I'll take a stab at it here. First, though there are several different sorts of creationism, all of them agree that there should be no transitional fossils at all between "kinds". For example, if "kind" means "species", creationism apparently predicts that there should be no species-to-species transitions whatsoever in the fossil record. If "kind" means "genus" or "family" or "order", there should be no species-to-species transitions that cross genus, family, or order lines. Furthermore, creationism apparently predicts that since life did not originate by descent from a common ancestor, fossils should not appear in a temporal progression, and it should not be possible to link modern taxa to much older, very different taxa through a "general lineage" of similar and progressively older fossils.
Other predictions vary with the model of creationism. For instance, an older model of creationism states that fossils were created during six metaphorical "days" that may each have taken millenia to pass. This form of creationism predicts that fossils should be found in the same order outlined in Genesis: seed-bearing trees first, then all aquatic animals and flying animals, then all terrestrial animals, then humans.
In contrast, many modern U.S. creationists believe the "Flood Theory" of the origin of fossils. The "Flood Theory" is derived from a strictly literal reading of the Bible, and states that all geological strata, and the fossils imbedded in them, were formed during the forty-day flood of Noah's time. Predictions of the Flood Theory apparently include the following:

24

Talk Origins internet site

by hooberus in

jw
friends

"talk origins" http://www.talkorigins.org is frequently used as a resource for origins research for laymen.

the site claims to be "exploring the creation evolution controversy" i believe that many people consider that it is an objective, accurate resource.

this thread is about some issues/problems that i have found on the site.. note: this thread is specifically about the talk origins site (and not others sites nor persons), if you can't keep to the subject please do not post here.

hooberus

So let's play the creationist game and look at forming a peptide by random addition of amino acids. This certainly is not the way peptides formed on the early Earth, but it will be instructive.
I will use as an example the "self-replicating" peptide from the Ghadiri group mentioned above [7]. I could use other examples, such as the hexanucleotide self-replicator [10], the SunY self-replicator [24] or the RNA polymerase described by the Eckland group [12], but for historical continuity with creationist claims a small peptide is ideal. This peptide is 32 amino acids long with a sequence of RMKQLEEKVYELLSKVACLEYEVARLKKVGE and is an enzyme, a peptide ligase that makes a copy of itself from two 16 amino acid long subunits. It is also of a size and composition that is ideally suited to be formed by abiotic peptide synthesis. The fact that it is a self replicator is an added irony.
The probability of generating this in successive random trials is (1/20) 32 or 1 chance in 4.29 x 10 40 . This is much, much more probable than the 1 in 2.04 x 10 390 of the standard creationist "generating carboxypeptidase by chance" scenario, but still seems absurdly low.
However, there is another side to these probability estimates, and it hinges on the fact that most of us don't have a feeling for statistics. When someone tells us that some event has a one in a million chance of occuring, many of us expect that one million trials must be undergone before the said event turns up, but this is wrong.
Here is a experiment you can do yourself: take a coin, flip it four times, write down the results, and then do it again. How many times would you think you had to repeat this procedure (trial) before you get 4 heads in a row?
Now the probability of 4 heads in a row is is (1/2) 4 or 1 chance in 16: do we have to do 16 trials to get 4 heads (HHHH)? No, in successive experiments I got 11, 10, 6, 16, 1, 5, and 3 trials before HHHH turned up. The figure 1 in 16 (or 1 in a million or 1 in 10 40 ) gives the likelihood of an event in a given trial, but doesn't say where it will occur in a series. You can flip HHHH on your very first trial (I did). Even at 1 chance in 4.29 x 10 40 , a self-replicator could have turned up surprisingly early. But there is more.
1 chance in 4.29 x 10 40 is still orgulously, gobsmackingly unlikely; it's hard to cope with this number. Even with the argument above (you could get it on your very first trial) most people would say "surely it would still take more time than the Earth existed to make this replicator by random methods". Not really; in the above examples we were examining sequential trials, as if there was only one protein/DNA/proto-replicator being assembled per trial. In fact there would be billions of simultaneous trials as the billions of building block molecules interacted in the oceans, or on the thousands of kilometers of shorelines that could provide catalytic surfaces or templates [2,15].
Let's go back to our example with the coins. Say it takes a minute to toss the coins 4 times; to generate HHHH would take on average 8 minutes. Now get 16 friends, each with a coin, to all flip the coin simultaneously 4 times; the average time to generate HHHH is now 1 minute. Now try to flip 6 heads in a row; this has a probability of (1/2) 6 or 1 in 64. This would take half an hour on average, but go out and recruit 64 people, and you can flip it in a minute. If you want to flip a sequence with a chance of 1 in a billion, just recruit the population of China to flip coins for you, you will have that sequence in no time flat.
So, if on our prebiotic earth we have a billion peptides growing simultaneously, that reduces the time taken to generate our replicator significantly.
Okay, you are looking at that number again, 1 chance in 4.29 x 10 40 , that's a big number, and although a billion starting molecules is a lot of molecules, could we ever get enough molecules to randomly assemble our first replicator in under half a billion years?
Yes, one kilogram of the amino acid arginine has 2.85 x 10 24 molecules in it (that's well over a billion billion); a tonne of arginine has 2.85 x 10 27 molecules. If you took a semi-trailer load of each amino acid and dumped it into a medium size lake, you would have enough molecules to generate our particular replicator in a few tens of years, given that you can make 55 amino acid long proteins in 1 to 2 weeks [14,16].
So how does this shape up with the prebiotic Earth? On the early Earth it is likely that the ocean had a volume of 1 x 10 24 litres. Given an amino acid concentration of 1 x 10 -6 M (a moderately dilute soup, see Chyba and Sagan 1992 [23]), then there are roughly 1 x 10 50 potential starting chains, so that a fair number of efficent peptide ligases (about 1 x 10 31 ) could be produced in a under a year, let alone a million years. The synthesis of primitive self-replicators could happen relatively rapidly, even given a probability of 1 chance in 4.29 x 10 40 (and remember, our replicator could be synthesized on the very first trial).
Assume that it takes a week to generate a sequence [14,16]. Then the Ghadiri ligase could be generated in one week, and any cytochrome C sequence could be generated in a bit over a million years (along with about half of all possible 101 peptide sequences, a large proportion of which will be functional proteins of some sort).
Although I have used the Ghadiri ligase as an example, as I mentioned above the same calculations can be performed for the SunY self replicator, or the Ekland RNA polymerase. I leave this as an exercise for the reader, but the general conclusion (you can make scads of the things in a short time) is the same for these oligonucleotides.

My comments:

The Talk Origins author is attempting to demonstrate that a very small protein polypeptide sequence (32 amino acids) could be reached by chance. He makes several errors and incredible assumptions:

His early earth "ocean" "volume" (1 x 10 24 litres), is actually the volume of the entire earth (I believe that he has been made aware of this error).

He makes the incredible assumption that all the amino acids are going to somehow self-polymerize into billions of 32 acid length chains (and then based on this he starts his search sequence calculations) ! In a watery environment polymers will tend to de-polymerize, therefore the idea that amino acids are all going to "link up" into chain sequences is the opposite of expectation.

He completely omits the chirality issue and apparently assumes 100% L amino acids in this early earth (under most conditions amino acids form in 50%/50% L and R ratios (proteins such as the above ligase probably require 100% L amino acids). If one assumes chance formation this factor alone could reduce the odds of getting the protein by up to 2 32 .

There are many other issues that are problematic for the above scenario, and the linked to source in the Talk Origins arcticle for his sample peptide has some very interesting comments.

[7] Severin K, Lee DH, Kennan AJ, and Ghadiri MR, A synthetic peptide ligase. Nature, 389: 706-9, 1997

24

Talk Origins internet site

by hooberus in

jw
friends

"talk origins" http://www.talkorigins.org is frequently used as a resource for origins research for laymen.

the site claims to be "exploring the creation evolution controversy" i believe that many people consider that it is an objective, accurate resource.

this thread is about some issues/problems that i have found on the site.. note: this thread is specifically about the talk origins site (and not others sites nor persons), if you can't keep to the subject please do not post here.

hooberus

Under the "Must-Read Files" page (http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-mustread.html) a single Abiogenesis arcticle appears called: "Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations"

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

No matter whether the first self-replicators were single molecules, or complexes of small molecules, this model is nothing like Hoyle's "tornado in a junkyard making a 747". Just to hammer this home, here is a simple comparison of the theory criticised by creationists, and the actual theory of abiogenesis.

The very premise of creationists' probability calculations is incorrect in the first place as it aims at the wrong theory. Furthermore, this argument is often buttressed with statistical and biological fallacies.

My comments: First of all I am not going to defend every calculation made by every creationist, however the use of the terms "the theory criticised by creationists" and the heading "Creationist idea of abiogenesis" can give the impression that creationists only perform calculations for instant "bacteria" formation, and not also step by step abiogenesis (In fact I think you will find many diffferent abiogenesis scenarios discussed in various creationist literature). The Talk Origins arcticle doesn't mention this.

Also, it should be noted that evolutionists have also used the "bacteria" calculation as well - in fact the source he listed (Hoyle) is an evolutionist. Furthermore, it may prove be true that the simplest truely sustaining life form may need to start with a much higher level of complexity than the "Real theory" of abiogenesis diagram above describes.

24

Talk Origins internet site

by hooberus in

jw
friends

"talk origins" http://www.talkorigins.org is frequently used as a resource for origins research for laymen.

the site claims to be "exploring the creation evolution controversy" i believe that many people consider that it is an objective, accurate resource.

this thread is about some issues/problems that i have found on the site.. note: this thread is specifically about the talk origins site (and not others sites nor persons), if you can't keep to the subject please do not post here.

hooberus

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB121.html

______________________________________________________________________________________

Claim CB121:

J. B. S. Haldane calculated that new genes become fixed only after 300 generations due to the cost of natural selection (Haldane 1957). Since humans and apes differ in 4.8 × 10 7 genes, there has not been enough time for difference to accumulate. Only 1,667 gene substitutions could have occurred if their divergence was ten million years ago.

Source:

ReMine, Walter J., 1993. The Biotic Message, St. Paul Science, Inc.

Response:

Haldane's "cost of natural selection" stemmed from an invalid simplifying assumption in his calculations. He divided by a fitness constant in a way that invalidated his assumption of constant population size, and his cost of selection is an artifact of the changed population size. He also assumed that two mutations would take twice as long to reach fixation as one, but because of sexual recombination, the two can be selected simultaneously and both reach fixation sooner. With corrected calculations, the cost disappears (Wallace 1991; Williams n.d.).

Haldane's paper was published in 1957, and Haldane himself said, "I am quite aware that my conclusions will probably need drastic revision" (Haldane 1957, 523). It is irresponsible not to consider the revision that has occurred in the forty years since his paper was published.
ReMine (1993), who promotes the claim, makes several invalid assumptions:
- The vast majority of differences would probably be due to genetic drift, not selection.
- Many genes would have been linked with genes that are selected and thus would have hitchhiked with them to fixation.
- Many mutations, such as those due to unequal crossing over, affect more than one codon.
- Human and ape genes both would be diverging from the common ancestor, doubling the difference.
- ReMine's computer simulation supposedly showing the negative influence of Haldane's dilemma assumed a population size of only six (Musgrave 1999).

___________________________________________________________________________________

My comments:

ReMine never made some of these assumptions. He never implied that the majority of substitutions in a lineage would be due to selection. (also ReMine's Haldane argument didn't even focus on the differences between humans and apes, to begin with).

I don't see how the TalkOrigins authors even read ReMine carefully. Here is ReMine's homepage:

http://www1.minn.net/~science/index.html

Click on the top subsection: "Haldane's Dilemma" and scroll down He has a response to the "Talk Origins" arcticle.

Also see:
http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/articles...ne_rebuttal.htm

24

Talk Origins internet site

by hooberus in

jw
friends

"talk origins" http://www.talkorigins.org is frequently used as a resource for origins research for laymen.

the site claims to be "exploring the creation evolution controversy" i believe that many people consider that it is an objective, accurate resource.

this thread is about some issues/problems that i have found on the site.. note: this thread is specifically about the talk origins site (and not others sites nor persons), if you can't keep to the subject please do not post here.

hooberus

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB120.html

____________________________________________________________________________________

Claim CB120:

The overall effect of mutations is to lower the viability of populations, due to the "genetic load," or genetic burden, that they add to the gene pool.

Source:

Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 56-57.

Response:

As new harmful mutations enter the population, selection removes existing harmful traits. The genetic load of a stable population is an equilibrium between the two.
Bacteria mutate much faster than plants and animals do, yet their populations are not becoming less viable.

____________________________________________________________________________________

My comments:

I think that load if sufficiently high can lower the viability of populations. Could it be that the Talk Origins author is making this based on textbook assumption?

ReMine sates:"All evolutionary genetics textbooks discuss harmful mutation in terms of mutational load. Mutational load is a concept for estimating how harmful mutation rates affect differential survival. This concept assumes that mutation and selection are in equilibrium, that is, the rate that new harmful mutations occur in the population equals the rate they are eliminated by selection. In other words, the concept makes the hidden assumption that error catastrophe does not occur. evolutionary textbooks do not draw attention to this detail." ReMine The Biotic message p. 251


	Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study John Woodmorappe #10-3-078