A Mathematician's View of Evolution

The Mathematical Intelligencer ^ | Granville Sewell

[Tribune7]

A scientist finds a fossil and he has questions for it. A creationist finds a fossil and he has dismissals for it. . .

Questions are fine but declaring conclusions as unquestionable is not fine.

Creationism has nothing to teach us.

I think you are placing many, many different world-view philosophies under that rubric, and the word should be restricted to the belief that Genesis and the calculations based on Biblical genealogies should be unquestioned.

If you use the world broadly, however, as in "we are endowed by our Creator" creationism can teach us much.

You say you are an agnostic. What's more important to know -- the existence of God or the age of the Earth?

[Tribune7]

The conclusion that you can draw is that the matter is not concluded. It could be that H. erectus is human. It could be that he is not. It could be that he is intermediate. You don't know definitively.

[VadeRetro]

Questions are fine but declaring conclusions as unquestionable is not fine.

Science is a systematic investigation of nature. You aren't investigating if you refuse to realize when you're getting someplace.

You say you are an agnostic. What's more important to know -- the existence of God or the age of the Earth?

If you have evidence for the age of the Earth, you've been paying attention. If you have evidence for the existence of God, you're either nuts or up for a Nobel.

[Tribune7]

Science is a systematic investigation of nature.

Right. And, almost by definition, you will be unable to prove the source of that nature through nature -- I almost feel like invoking Godel here. Further, when investigating it is critical that one keeps in mind the difference between investigating and solving.

If you have evidence for the existence of God, you're either nuts or up for a Nobel.

And you are looking for material evidence, which sort of makes my point. The true nature of the universe including the answer to the critical question as to what is our purpose may not be able to be revealed via material evidence. In fact, I think it is impossible for material investigation to address this.

And the existence of God must be addressed whether one has material evidence for it or not.

[ahayes]

"Natural forces, such as corrosion, erosion, fire and explosions, do not create order, they destroy it.”

We observe many things happening on earth that result in a local lowering of entropy, many of these things are triggered by "natural forces" such as heat and light. When the foundation of a person's argument is the denial of these readily observable phenomenon, the rest of their argument fails, being built upon sand.

[VadeRetro]

Science doesn't have the ultimate answers and maybe never will, but it converges upon an increasingly accurate description of nature. It has done so particularly rapidly over the last two centuries, the very period of progress Witch Doctor Luddites tend to reject as some kind of bizarre wrong turn.

And the existence of God must be addressed whether one has material evidence for it or not.

Not in science class.

[Physicist]

Ha! Salt crystals are formed by tiny angels that push the atoms into place!

Can you prove it didn't happen? WELL? CAN YOU?

</criswell>

[ahayes]

Ah, yet another case of the shrinking angel phenomenon, an unexpected side effect of the "God of the Gaps" SOP. As we cram God into the gaps in order to prove he exists, God must grow smaller to fit the gaps as the gaps grow smaller, and the angels sadly shrink simultaneously. Perhaps the angels originally teased the atoms into place with incredibly fine angel hairs, but now it takes a minuaturized angel to do the same job.

[Physicist]

Science isn't only evil; it's inconsiderate.

[FreedomProtector]

perhaps you should read the rest of the quote from article which you quoted...

"...The second law is all about probability. The reason natural forces may turn a spaceship into a pile of rubble but not vice-versa is probability: of all the possible arrangements atoms could take, only a very small percentage could fly to the moon and back."

When you can spontaneously generate silicon chips from your pile of sand via chance and natural process "Natural forces, such as corrosion, erosion, fire and explosions" or heat and sunlight, you will certainly be rich.

While we observe process happening on earth that result in a local lowering of entropy, we never observe any of those process put things together in an orderly way as a result of random changes, whether they be the building blocks to life---amino acids do not combine in moving water to form proteins--- or metal parts do not combine in tornados to form bicycles.


from Tim M. Berra, "Evolution and the Myth of Creationism"

"For example, an unassembled bicycle that arrives at your house in a shipping carton is in a state of disorder. You supply the energy of your muscles (which you get from food that came ultimately from sunlight) to assemble the bike. You have got order from disorder by supplying energy. The Sun is the source of energy input to the earth's living systems and allows them to evolve."


This is funny in a couple of ways:

1) there is intelligence putting the bike together

2) It is so improbable that it is funny that someone could believe that sunlight+some ridiculous amount to time+chance and natural processes could arrive at life as we observe it today.

While it is true that the Sun's energy ultimately supplying the energy to put the bike together, it is ridiculous to say that the sun is supplying the intelligence to put the bike together, or that there was no intelligence involved. Maybe the evolutionist is a closet worshiper of the Sun. Or perhaps it is rational and probable that the world was intelligently designed by the Son.

[ahayes]

The rest of the quote was irrelevant nonsense, as I've pointed out that the premise is wrong.

While we observe process happening on earth that result in a local lowering of entropy, we never observe any of those process put things together in an orderly way as a result of random changes, whether they be the building blocks to life---amino acids do not combine in moving water to form proteins--- or metal parts do not combine in tornados to form bicycles.

Yes we do observe such changes, ignoring the fallacious idea that the first proteins were made from amino acids combining all on their lonesome. I too used to think that entropy forbade processes leading to the origin of life, but I've come to realize that reality disagrees. In actuality in chemistry and biochemistry many organizing processes are entropy driven. These processes include some coupling reactions, cyclizations, and folding of macromolecules. And indeed they are the result of randomness. In a chemical reaction or conformational change the randomness comes from random molecular movement, from intramolecular changes by atoms turning, twisting, or stretching, or from intermolecular interactions from molecules bashing into each other as they move about randomly. These movements are often reversible--two molecules may collide and merge, spitting out a water molecule, and then a moment later be struck by another water molecule and split apart, with the water molecule merging with one of the resultant molecules. A peptide may sample multiple conformations before finding the lowest energy one, again driven by entropy as the folding excludes water molecules that raise local entropy. The result is a statistical sampling where a large percentage of the population is in a thermodynamic energy well, with the option of reversing if enough energy is attained and the right partners are present.

[js1138]

Newton's Second Law of Thermal Documents placemarker.

[dragonblustar]

So, if I took a vitamin pill, put it in a bottle of water, shake it up and let is set in the sun for about a million years. That's how we make life?????

[FreedomProtector]

That's it. You have unlocked the secret to creating life from non-life. Claim your million dollar prize here:

http://www.us.net/life/index.htm

Evolutionists have a $1,000,000 reward for anyone who can explain spontaneous generation by chance and natural processes...The Orgin-of-Life prize.


One part that is particularly funny....

"Other than announcements in scientific journals, The Prize will not be publicly advertised in lay media. The Origin-of-Life Foundation, Inc. wishes to keep the project as quiet as possible within the scientific community. No media interviews will be granted until after the Prize is won."


One tiny little problem though.... it violates a scientific law--that of abiogenesis, but I'm sure that your vitamin pill is smart and clever (I dare not say intelligence here) enough to find a way around that.

[Dimensio]

So, if I took a vitamin pill, put it in a bottle of water, shake it up and let is set in the sun for about a million years. That's how we make life?????

I do not believe that anyone has made this claim.

[ahayes]

It's much easier to mock claims that no one has made than to debunk those that have been made.

[FreedomProtector]

"ignoring the fallacious idea that the first proteins were made from amino acids combining all on their lonesome."


Oh, so there had to have been something else present for life to form....good point....the genetic machinery that tells the cell how to produce protein...the DNA. The problem is that both both DNA and protein depend on each other for existence, and you are assuming that "The genetic machinery that tells the cell how to produce protein and the protein required to build that genetic machinery both originated gradually" So not only do proteins need to be generated by the clever and smart (don't say intelligence that is a bad word) chance machine, DNA needs to be generated at the same time by the same clever and smart chance machine at the same time.

Even if polypeptides had formed in the primordial soup, hydrolysis would have broken them up and destroyed most amino acids. Organic compounds such as amino acids, tend to break down when dissolved in water. The higher the temperature, the faster this breakdown occurs. …joining many amino acids together to form a protein with a useful biological activity is a much more difficult problem than forming amino acids in the first place. The major problem in hooking amino acids together is that, chemically, it involves the removal of a molecule of water for each amino acid joined to the growing protein chain. Conversely, the presence of water strongly inhibits amino acids from forming proteins…..

This and other problems w/ spontaneous generation posted here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1689062/posts?page=185#185

There could be a interesting section or two added on the probability of designed enzymes as part of a discussion of some of the types of reactions you mentioned (enzymes are often required).... typical bacterium, which is the simplest of cells, is made up of 2000 enzymes...And of course, the formation of enzymes is but one improbable step in the formation of life....I will try to add that if I can find time.....

[ahayes]

You're a bit behind the times, current thought is that RNA was the first self-templating molecule, and that it originally catalyzed protein synthesis while DNA later took over its role. A gorgeous book on this topic is Singularities by Christian de Duve. It's not so much targeted towards laymen as some popular science books, but you'd probably get a lot out of it still.

[FreedomProtector]

Thanks for the ping. I appreciate your effort to add material to the discussion. I wish I had a copy. While it is tempting to remark on improbability of randomly appearing RNA, it would be arrogant and against my principles to comment on something I haven't read at least excerpts of...

...you never know the alter ego of FreedomProtector may not be a science laymen....who is that masked man?