Originally Posted by antelope_sniper
Originally Posted by Tarquin
Originally Posted by antelope_sniper
Originally Posted by Tarquin
Actually, considered in toto, such evidence shows that the standard (neo-darwinian) model cannot possibly be true. Its adherents cling to it out of religious necessity, not because it is empirically defensible.


Oh really?

And how is that?



The odds of the appearance by natural selection of a functional protein is so small as to be impossible. The protein folding problem is insurmountable and you cannot have life without proteins. In fact, the odds are so long that neo-darwinists are forced to posit a "multi-verse" to try to tame them, But of course the idea of a "multi-verse" has literally zero empirical support and in fact can't even be tested. How convenient! But its another in a long line of examples of evolutionists tacitly admitting to the impossible odds by conjuring ever-more silly scenarios to try to tame them----very much along the lines of Francis Crick positing "pan-permia" in a tacit recognition life could not possibly have evolved on earth under the evolutionary constraints extant here as we know them.


Except, a rudimentary understanding of the biochemistry and odds calculations renders your argument null and void.

The calculation of odds assumes that the protein molecule formed by chance. However, biochemistry is not chance, making the calculated odds meaningless. Biochemistry produces complex products, and the products themselves interact in complex ways. For example, complex organic molecules are observed to form in the conditions that exist in space, and it is possible that they played a role in the formation of the first life (Spotts 2001).

The calculation of odds assumes that the protein molecule must take one certain form. However, there are innumerable possible proteins that promote biological activity. Any calculation of odds must take into account all possible molecules (not just proteins) that might function to promote life.

The calculation of odds assumes the creation of life in its present form. The first life would have been very much simpler.

The calculation of odds ignores the fact that innumerable trials would have been occurring simultaneously.


AS, you're just spouting nonsense. I'm going off memory, but if we turned every sub-atomic and atomic particle in the known universe into a computational device, each spitting out trials at the rate of a million per second for the last 4.5 billion years we still would not have tamed the odds necessary for the formation of one simple protein, let alone the hundreds needed to originate life. As far as evolution not being based on chance, all the leading thinkers in the history of evolution say otherwise. In fact, the nascent claim that evolution is somehow "directed" is closely allied with the idea of "theistic evolution". It is telling that the long odds have forced you to admit the possibility of God into your evolutionary creation story. laugh laugh


Here is what I was looking for:

Anthony Flew explains his thinking in his book ‘There is a God’. He argues on pp75-8 as follows:

‘I have embraced since the beginning of my philosophical life of following the argument no matter where it leads.

I was particularly impressed with Gerry Schroeders's point-by-point refutation of what I call the "monkey theorem." This idea, which has been presented in a number of forms and variations, defends the possibility of life arising by chance using the analogy of a multitude of monkeys banging away on computer keyboards and eventually ending up writing a Shakesparearean sonnet.

Schroeder first referred to an experiment conducted by the British National Council of Arts. A computer was placed in a cage with six monkeys. After one month of hammering away at it (as well as using it as a bathroom!), the monkeys produced fifty typed pages - but no a single word. Schroeder noted that this was the case even though the shortest work in the English language is one letter (a or I). A is a word only if there is a space on either side of it. If we take it that the keyboard has thirty characters (the 26 letters and other symbols), then the likelihood of getting a one-letter world is 30 x 30 x 30, which is 27,000. The likelihood of a getting a one-letter word is one chance of 27,000

Schroeder then applied the probabilities to the sonnet analogy. "What's the chance of getting a Shakespearean sonnet?" he asked, He continued....

•All the sonnets are the same length. They're by definition fourteen lines long. I picked the one I knew the opening line for, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" I counted the number of letters; there are 488 letters in the sonnet. What's the likelihood of hammering away and getting 488 letters in exact sequence as in "Shall I campare thee to a summer's day? What you end up with is 26 multiplied by itself 488 times - or 26 to the 488th power. Or, in other words, in base 10,10 to the 690th.

•Now the number of particles in the universe - not grains of sand, I'm talking about protons, electrons, and neutrons - is 10 to the 80th . Ten to the 80th is 1 with 80 zeros after it. Ten to 690th is 1 with 690 zeros after it. There are not enough particles in the universe to write down the trials; you'd be off by a factor of 10 to the 600th.

•If you took the entire universe and converted it to computer chips - forget the monkeys - each one weighing a millionth of a gram and had each computer chip able to spin out 288 trials at, say, a million times a second; if you turn the entire universe into these microcomputer chips and these chips were spinning a million times a second (producing) random letters, the number of trials you would get since the beginning of time would be 10 to the 90th trials. It would be off again by a factor of 10 to the 600th. You will never get a sonnet by chance. The universe would have to be 10 to the 600th time larger. Yet the world just thinks monkeys can do it every time.

After hearing Schroeder's presentation, I told him that he had very satisfactorily and decisively established that the 'monkey theorem' was a load of rubbish, and that it was particularly good to do it with just a sonnet; the theorem is sometimes proposed using the works of Shakespeare or a single play, such as Hamlet. If the theorem won't work for a single sonnet, then of course it's simply absurd to suggest that the more elaborate feat of the origin of life could have been achieved by chance.’

Last edited by Tarquin; 07/05/20.
Tarquin