Science demonstrates that specified order is ubiquitous in the physical laws of the universe and in life.
That's nice. Now would you care to actually answer the question that was asked?
Oh, wait, I know why you dodged it with a lame non-answer -- it's because the assertion that "only one specified order will do" IS BLATANTLY FALSE and thus can't be defended.
Anyone with even a basic knowledge of biology (which as we've seen leaves out the vast majority of anti-evos) knows that vast numbers of protein sequences are functionally equivalent, it's not like nature has to hit upon *one* single possible sequence or else nothing works right.
This is how different species manage to survive just fine even though most have *different* protein sequences than other species for basic functional proteins. The cytochrome-c sequence in fish for example differs from mammalian cytochrome-c by about 13%, for example, and yet still functions just fine. There is not only ONE cytochrome-c sequence that works, there are a VAST number that work.
The claim that "only one specified order will do" IS DEMONSTRABLY WRONG, and yet anti-science yahoos keep trying to pretend that this is the case, as in the idiotic "deck of cards" analysis presented by AndrewC in this thread. Sure, the odds of ONE given sequence of the deck of cards is very remote, but THAT'S NOT HOW BIOLOGY WORKS, so his analysis is a straw man fallacy of the highest order. Biology is very flexible, vast numbers of alternative sequences are functionally equivalent, and even more greatly vast numbers are partially functionally equivalent (and thus a basis for evolutionary refinement).
Yockey for example showed in 1977 that 3.8 x 10^61 proteins of length 100 are functionally equivalent to cytochrome-c. Are the anti-evo people 32 years behind on their reading, or are they just very dishonestly pretending that this isn't the case when they leave this factor out when making grossly fallacious "probability arguments" that (by leaving out key facts) *falsely* make it appear that evolution is unlikely? Please explain.
Furthermore, the laughable "deck of cards" post by AndrewC also leaves out other key features of actual biological evolution, which makes his analogy completely invalid as any kind of accurate analogy to evolution. 1. There's only a single deck of cards in his goofy example -- in biology there are vast numbers of simultaneous "card decks"; in case AndrewC hasn't noticed, there is not only ONE organism/genome in the world. 2. The deck gets completely reshuffled in each "trial" in his laughable example -- in biology, in case AndrewC hasn't noticed, the genome does not get completely reshuffled every generation. 3. The deck does not get replicated (i.e. have children) in his childishly simplistic analogy -- in case AndrewC hasn't noticed, genomes in nature replicate and this is a key point in the evolutionary refinement of genomes. 4. The deck is not subject to selection in AndrewC's silly post -- in case AndrewC hasn't noticed, biological genomes are "tested" against nature and the ones that are a better "fit" to their environment survive more often to reproduce while the poorer matches tend to get weeded out and eliminated. 5. As previously mentioned, AndrewC's fallacious post left out the fact that vast numbers of arrangements are still the "right" answer -- in case AndrewC hasn't noticed, life on Earth works just fine despite countless sequence differences between species in the basic proteins of life.
Any attempted analogy to evolution must include these features (and more) in order to be any kind of meaningful comparison to actual evolution, but AndrewC left them all out. His analogy was childishly inadequate. Perhaps he should leave analysis of evolution to those who actually know anything about it and how it works. Watching anti-evos attempt to analyze evolution is like watching pigeons try to play chess. They crap on the board, knock the pieces over, then fly back to their flock to declare that they won the game.
This is why the anti-evos keep getting laughed at -- they think that something they came up on their lunch break without having a good knowledge of the field is going to be accurate and devastating to 150+ years of research in evolutionary biology, *and* is going to be something that all the scientists in the field never once thought of already, much less examined and tested in their field of study and already resolved. The hubris is mind-boggling, and more than a bit funny.
Many people on the anti-evo side fail to take into account why a process which includes variation, reproduction, and selection is very different from mere card-shuffling, and is capable of much more.
If you're going to make an analogy, make sure it's a valid comparison.
Gee what brought you in out of the woods? Anyway coming from someone who has yet to show me a working cubic function generator after claiming that he could build it is rather humorous. Despite your assertions the numbers do mean something. That is why living things die.
Ichy gave you dishonorable mention, but forgot to ping you.
All the best—GGG
Ooops...I spoke too soon...didn’t see your responses below.
Not compared to the vast number of protein sequences that are possible. If you are going to make an analogy, make it a good one.
"Yockey for example showed in 1977 that 3.8 x 10^61 proteins of length 100 are functionally equivalent to cytochrome-c."
Care to compare that number to the total number of possible amino acid sequences for the cytochrome c protein? Would that comparison highlight the specificity of the cytochrome c protein too much?
"There's only a single deck of cards in his goofy example -- in biology there are vast numbers of simultaneous "card decks"; in case AndrewC hasn't noticed, there is not only ONE organism/genome in the world."
Adding enormous numbers of complex systems that must work together for life to exist makes your problem worse, not better.
"Perhaps he should leave analysis of evolution to those who actually know anything about it and how it works."
You mean like your misrepresentation of cytochrome c above?
"Many people on the anti-evo side fail to take into account why a process which includes variation, reproduction, and selection is very different from mere card-shuffling, and is capable of much more."
Likewise, many people on the evo-side fail to recognize that the existence of the processes of reproduction, selection and fault-tolerance built-in to the biological processes are not evidence that these processes evolved without engaging in the fallacy of affirming the consequent.
"If you're going to make an analogy, make sure it's a valid comparison."
Sounds like somebody needs to take their own advice.
Brilliant. I am actually a bit surprised AndrewC trotted out this tired Fred Hoylesque deck of cards analogy. I remember him being a tad more sophisticated than that.