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The Origin of Specious Nonsense. Twelve years on. Still going. Answer soon.
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Second part of oldrnwisr' post (My answers in Blue)
Quote:- oldrnwisr
Now, to the real mistake made by the Dembski, the relevance of a Universal Probability Bound to evolution at all. Before we get into details here two things should be highlighted.
1. The formation of proteins and other organic compounds is not determined by or affected by chance and so probability has no relevance to any discussion on protein formation.
You are correct that proteins aren't produced by chance ... because, amongst other things, the UPB prevents this. Proteins are produced in complex and highly specified amino acid sequences. The specification of these sequences was either done by an inordinate intelligence (a possible hypothesis) or via random processes like mutagenesis (something that we both appear to agree is impossible).
2. The formation of proteins in the early universe and their statistical probability is not relevant to a discussion on evolution. This is a matter for abiogenesis which is a wholly separate theory.
The Abiogenesis Hypothesis may be regarded as separate from the evolution hypothesis ... but when it comes to materialistic explanations for life, you can't have one without the other ... and as they both involve CFSI, the repeated breaching of the UPB by their component parts and irreducibly complex components; they both suffer from the same impossibility issues.
OK, on with the details.
1. Sequential macromolecular assembly
Let's assume for a second that creationists are right and that proteins were formed by chance. This still doesn't stop Dembski being wrong. One of the biggest mistakes he makes is in assuming the construction of a protein by the sequential addition of an amino acid.
For comparison let's look at tossing a coin. If you want to generate the following sequence HHHH (H being heads, T being tails) using four coins and you could toss all four coins in 1 minute then you could reasonably expect to generate the sequence above in 8 minutes. However, what if you get sixteen friends to help you, each simultaneously flipping a coin. Now you could generate the above sequence in just 1 minute.
The probability of forming a protein sequence is not just affected by its length but also by the number of trial opportunities. This is where the size of Earth comes into play.
It has been reasonably established that the size of the primordial ocean was in the region of 10^24 litres. Furthermore, if we take a rough average of the number of molecules per unit mass of amino acids (3x10^24 /kg) and a primordial soup amino acid concentration of 1 x 10^-6 M, then we should expect no less than about 1 x 1050 potential starting chains. This means that the number of efficient ligases that could be produced even in just 1 year is greater than 10^30. So Dembski's UPB is immediately blown out of the water.
How does something that is 10^30 (an infinitesimally smaller figure than the 10^150 UPB figure) invalidate the UPB. You have just agreed that Dr Dembski's UPB figure is correct (if every hydrogen atom in a universe 250 time greater than the observed size of the Universe were making a protein sequence 10^45 times a second since the Big Bang supposedly occurred 13.7 billion years ago).
... so your 10^30 figure pales into insignificance ... and when you compare it with the non-functional combinatorial space occupied by proteins it equates to a specific protein with a chain length of just 24 amino acids long.
Unlike Dembski's ramblings, these figures are supported not just mathematically but also by experimental results:
Less of the personal disrespect and more of the argument about the facts please
A synthetic peptide ligase.
Synthesis of long prebiotic oligomers on mineral surfaces
These are intelligently designed synthesis of very basic oligomers using the full ingenuity and competencies of mankind ... and still no sign of life from it ... and this is somehow 'proving' that life created itself?
Do you really believe that such intelligently designed synthesis prove anything other than the intelligence required to be applied to produce life is in a totally different league to Human Intelligence and our puny attempts at copying the original Master Designer of life?
2. On the search space
One of the other major problems in Dembski's idea of a UPB is the difference between the raw probability of the sequence and the match of the sequence to a given specification. Allow me to explain using one of Dembski's favourite examples, the Caputo case. This centres on a vote rigging allegation against Nicholas Caputo whose job it was to draw ballots to decide who got top billing on election papers. When 40 of the 41 draws turned out in favour of the Democrats, Caputo was tried and was judged to have rigged the ballot with the judge concluding: "confronted with these odds, few persons of reason will accept the explanation of blind chance." However, the Caputo case raises some interesting problems with Dembski's arguments. To see how let's go back to coin tosses. Take the following sequence:
HTHHHTTHTHTHHHHTHHTTTHTTHHHTHTHTHHTTTTHHH
This sequence looks like a fair drawing. When we calculate the probability of the sequence we get (1/2)^41 or 4.5x10^-13 or 1 in 2x10^12. Now let's look at a rigged sequence:
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
When we calculate the probability of a rigged sequence we get 4.5x10^-13. The exact same. So it is not the probability of the sequence itself which is relevant but only that which matches the specification. So in testing protein sequences it is not the base probability of creating a 100 unit protein at random that matters but rather how many of these sequences result in useful proteins.
As it turns out quite a lot actually. If we take a 100 unit protein sequence then the sample space is 10^130. However, when we match all the possible sequences against useful proteins we find that 3.8x10^61 alone result in cytochrome C. Therefore even using random assembly we end up with a probability of creating a useful protein of just 1 in 10^69, well within Dembski's bullsh1t UPB.
Again please stop the personal invective ... it doesn't become you, and it detracts from your argument. You are 'older and wiser' and such school-yard stuff should be beneath you.
Anyway, the protein sequences for a specific function are observed to be very tiny indeed ... even one change of amino acid along a critical sequence is observed to destroy its functionality completely - and what is required within living processes is specific functional proteins with specific functions tightly co-ordinated within the system concerned ... so the odds in favour are tiny, sometimes as low as one ... and the odds against are up at the UPB of 10^150 for protein chains of just 116 amino acids and beyond the UPB for biomolecules with chain lengths in excess of 116.
3. On abiogenesis and creationist chemistry
Another big problem Dembski has is that he's a mathematician and not a biochemist. This leads him to making a huge false assumption in the first place, namely that the early development of organic life involved the synthesis of proteins which we find today. To show graphically what I mean here's the difference between how Dembski thinks life evolved and how the research says it did.
The research that has been conducted in this area has shown the possibility and likelihood that the primordial soup was replete with small chain (~30 mer) peptides which could self-replicate. Again this blows Dembski's UPB out of the water, given that a 32-mer chain even by random assembly has a probability of just 10^40.
Probabilities with 10^40 against them are sufficiently large that when specifically combined (as we observe them to be) with other specific biomolecules, with equal probabilities against them, the UPB is rapidly reached.
... so, from a probability point of view it dosn't matter whether there was one step or many steps ... the probability is a multiple of the total chain length.
... and we still have to explain how large specified biomolecules were formed well in excess of 116 amino acids long, when the odds against each one of them is beyond the UPB.
The volume of research is so large in fact that it would probably blow your tiny little mind JC. This is a sample of some of the more important papers on the subject.
... again your insults do not become you ... as a practicing scientist, I'm quite capable of looking at these papers.
A self-replicating peptide
Oligonucleotide-directed peptide synthesis in a ribosome- and ribozyme-free system
A multisubunit ribozyme that is a catalyst of and template for complementary strand RNA synthesis
Emergence of symbiosis in peptide self-replication through a hypercyclic network
All of these involve the very best that mankind can do to replicate the work of a vastly more intelligent creator ... these papers just 'scratch at the surface' of the specified complexity that is the signature of intelligent creation that is found in life.
All in all, we can see that the UPB like the rest of Dembski's work is so profoundly flawed in so many ways that it is a wonder creationists still bother with it. It just goes to show what a joke creationism really is.
Dr Dembski's work is at the very cutting edge of molecular genetics ... and any joke is on those who fold their arms in gestures of defiance at this brand new approach to research within the life sciences.:)0 -
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