Posted on 06/15/2017 12:50:19 PM PDT by Kaslin
Zero times anything is zero. The odds of life just happening by chance are zero.
This universe just springing into being by chance is impossible. It takes a leap of blind faith to believe in evolution, unguided or guided. Of course, there are tiny changes within kinds. It seems to me usually when the evolutionists make their case, they point to these tiny changes.
The analogies to the improbability of evolution by a random process are endless.
A hurricane blows through a junkyard and assembles a fully functioning 747 jet.
Scrabble pieces are randomly spilled out on the board, and they spell out the Declaration of Independence word for word. (Source: Dr. Stephen Meyer, author of Darwin’s Doubt).
A monkey sits at a typewriter and types thousands of pages. He types out word for word, with no mistakes, the entire works of Shakespeare.
The odds against our universe, of the earth, of the creation, to have just come into being with no intelligent design behind the grand scheme are greater than all of these impossible scenarios.
Forget the works of Shakespeare. What are the odds of a monkey randomly typing away simply spelling the 9-letter word “evolution” by chance? That doesn’t sound too hard, does it?
Dr. Scott M. Huse, B.S., M.S., M.R.E., Th.D., Ph.D., who holds graduate degrees in computer science, geology, and theology, wrote a book about creation/evolution back in the early 1980s, The Collapse of Evolution. Huse has done extensive study on these questions of random probability. I had the privilege of interviewing him about it for Dr. D. James Kennedy’s television special, “The Case for Creation” (1988). It was a type of Scopes Trial in reverse---filmed on location in Tennessee, in the very courtroom where the 1925 monkey trial took place.
Later, Huse created a computer program to see what are the odds of a monkey typing the word “evolution”? He notes that the odds are 1 in 5.4 trillion, which statistically is the same thing as zero. Any casino that offered such horrible odds would lose customers quickly, because no one would ever win. Forgive my bluntness, but the suckers have to win something before they start losing big.
Here’s what Scott told me in an email: “The typical personal computer keyboard has 104 keys, most of which are not letters from the alphabet. However, if we ignore that fact and say the monkey can only hit keys that are letters of the alphabet, he has a one in twenty-six chance of hitting the correct letter each time.
“Of course, he has to hit them in the correct sequence as well: E then V then O, etc. Twenty-six to the power of nine (the number of letters in the word “evolution”) equals 5,429,503,678,976.
“So, the odds of him accidentally typing just the 9-letter word ‘evolution’ are about 1 in about 5.4 trillion …From a purely mathematical standpoint, the bewildering complexity of even the most basic organic molecules [which are much more complicated than a nine-letter word] completely rules out the possibility of life originating by mere chance.”
Take just one aspect of life---amino acids and protein cells. Dr. Stephen Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the philosophy of science at Cambridge University. In his New York Times bestselling book, Darwin’s Doubt (2013), Meyer points out that “the probability of attaining a correct sequence [of amino acids to build a protein molecule] by random search would roughly equal the probability of a blind spaceman finding a single marked atom by chance among all the atoms in the Milky Way galaxy---on its face clearly not a likely outcome.” (p. 183)
And this is just one aspect of life, the most basic building-block. In Meyer’s book, he cites the work of engineer-turned-molecular-biologist, Dr. Douglas Axe, who has since written the book, Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed (2016).
In the interview I did with Scott Huse long ago, he noted, “The probability of life originating through mere random processes, as evolutionists contend, really honestly, is about zero…. If you consider probability statistics, it exposes the naiveté and the foolishness, really, of the evolutionary viewpoint.”
Dr. Charles Thaxton was another guest on that classic television special from 1988. He is a scientist who notes that life is so complex, the chances of it arising by mere chance is virtually impossible. Thaxton, now with the Discovery Institute, has a Ph.D. in physical chemistry, and a post-doctorate degree in molecular biology and a Harvard post-doctorate in the history and philosophy of science.
Thaxton notes, “I’d say in my years of study, the amazing thing is the utter complexity of living things….Most scientists would readily grant that however life happened, it did not happen by chance.”
The whole creation points to the Creator. Huse sums up the whole point: “Simply put, a watch has a watchmaker and we have a Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Genes are a symbolic medium - and the semantic closure is the correlation that constrains and conveys what the genes represent. For example, codons only represent amino acids if you have the system in place to interpret the functional relationship of the medium (aaRS).
Consider the data input for a CAD model that is then created (physically expressed) with a 3D printer or rapid prototype machine. Now appreciate the information transfer from an idea, to the symbolic medium of software, to the specific design – the translations that must occur – and the system(s) that must already be in place to interpret the functional relationships with the proper correlation and constraints.
“I mean maybe primordial RNA1 has an extra atom or few compared to primordial RNA2. And the structural difference makes the two incapable of catalyzing each other.”
I’m not sure what “primordial” RNA would look like.
But keep in mind, many modified RNA are reactive with non-modified RNA.
Your scenario could in fact actually be speculated to increase the odds of reaction and replication rather than hinder it.
>>That was discovered about 20 years ago.
Sounds simple.
Have simple, self-replicating RNA polymers been synthesized in the lab since then?
“the semantic closure is the correlation that constrains and conveys what the genes represent.”
Thanks. I am not sure I exactly get it, but this was direct and helps.
My comment is that DNA is a lot more than just genes and codons.
” For example, codons only represent amino acids if you have the system in place to interpret the functional relationship of the medium (aaRS)”
Yes. And codons in one direction may not be codons in another direction, but may have a separate non-coding function.
Quite multi-layered in its structural function wherein the information is inherent in the chemical properties and associated structures.
Yes.
Here us a great talk about the discovery of catalytic RNA by Tom Cech.
It’s 10 minutes. You can jump to 9:45 if you want to see the last part where the RNA catalytic properties were discovered.
Note that this is RNA alone adding a base to itself.
With increased diversity of molecular species manufactured in the process.
>>Note that this is RNA alone adding a base to itself.
Where did the RNA that added the base to itself come from?
Suppose I make a machine that makes copies of itself, but sometimes makes the copies imperfectly. While most of the imperfect copies would probably be machines that were less efficient at making copies, or machines that made the copies poorly which would end in branches of generations that ended in failure....still at least some changes might make the machine actually better at making copies. But then that beneficial change is lost in the next generation which it made correctly--that is without the beneficial change.
iMissThatDidYa?
Throughout the presentation Dr. Cech references "purified RNA". Collected from....?
Then he describes splicing a molecule into an artificial transcript:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAChisSiW3o&feature=youtu.be&t=9m
The primary revelation that proteins are not requisite for RNA splicing is cool - however Splicing a molecule into an an artificial RNA polymer is a HUGE shortfall from manufacturing self-replicating RNA from atomic precursors.
So, at least per the video evidence you provided, the answer is NO - self-replicating RNA polymers have NOT been synthesized in the lab since then.
“Where did the RNA that added the base to itself come from?”
It was the same sequence as tetrahymena ribosomal RNA which was synthesized to make sure there were no proteins present, which could have been catalyzing the reaction and Cech wanted to know if it was solely RNA carrying out the reaction.
“With increased diversity of molecular species manufactured in the process.”
Yes, could be.
Except the next generation isn't made "correctly" - it's made "directly", as a molecular copy of the genome containing the beneficial change.
In the reaction a base is added - the RNA is not simply cut.
You also are unaware that this initial finding was followed up and it was found that multiple RNA bases could be added to a string of RNA.
This is self replication.
Except in that video Dr. Cech doesn’t mention synthesized RNA until he describes splicing a molecule into an artificial transcript:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAChisSiW3o&feature=youtu.be&t=9m
Is there a published source that describes the methodology by which the “purified RNA”, referenced throughout the presentation prior to 9m0s, was obtained?
Then it wont benefit from natural selection.
Yes. Adding a base - that would be the SPLICING part.
splice (splīs)
►
>>This is self replication.
And 2+2=5
As interesting and exciting as "multiple RNA bases could be added to a string of RNA" is - it's still not the sort of complete (and sustained) self-replication required to demonstrate evolutonary abiogenesis in the lab, let alone in Nature.
>>Then it wont benefit from natural selection.
Yes, the benefit is manifested when the beneficial mutation is copied EXACTLY to the next generation.
You don’t understand the chemistry.
It is a splicing out reaction but you do not understand that the spliced out stretch has an additional base added.
That is self replication.
PubMed. Cech
“Yes. Adding a base - that would be the SPLICING part.”
No.
Splicing does not need to add anything. Splicing film does not add a frame.
As far as DNA your examples here are like restriction endonuclease mediated DNA splicing. An extra base is not added.
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