Originally posted by twhiteheadAgreed. The first step in the scientific method is making observations. How do you propose to make observations about the origin of life if it happened millions of years ago?
And the beauty of science is that when scientists opinions differ, we can use the scientific method to determine who is right.
No, not all theistic scientists are dishonest. Some certainly are, just as some atheist scientists are (quite a lot are actually). Luckily the scientific process does not require universal honesty.
Originally posted by FetchmyjunkYou may not realize it, but observing a rock that formed millions of years ago, is observing something that happened millions of years ago.
Agreed. The first step in the scientific method is making observations. How do you propose to make observations about the origin of life if it happened millions of years ago?
So, we can for example determine what life forms existed millions of years ago.
We have not observed very much with regards to the origin of life other than approximately when it happened, which is why I have claimed we are still largely ignorant about it.
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Originally posted by twhiteheadThese responses may be somewhat out of sequence.
I asked you if you read about what I wrote about.
No, I read page 107 to 114.
So we discuss. My first question is why exactly did you go to pages 107 through 114 to debunk a model he proposed on page 103 ?
If you wish to show your problems with the model on page 103 why don't you refer to the details of that model during that discussion of its details.
Page 107 starts with the heading - Two Implausible Models For Evolution.
You want your readers to assume that because you disagree with the details of those pages, the model on page 103 is nonsense.
You challenge in essence "I dare you to discuss with me." But what I wrote about you are not going into to discuss. You are going into generalizations about some models unmentioned as to detail.
Originally posted by sonshipI note you have not read my previous posts.
So we discuss. My first question is why exactly did you go to pages 107 through 114 to debunk a model he proposed on page 103?
The online version has different page numbers.
Are you willing to discuss it, or are you going to continue to try and sideline the thread into a stupid argument over page numbers?
The author of the book makes the demonstrably false assumption that he knows what proteins or DNA sequences are necessary for life. Do you deny this?
Actually I will go further.
The author demonstrates some knowledge of proteins and DNA and lists some statistics of them and the number of species etc suggesting he has done a little bit of research into the matter. Yet he overlooks some well known facts about biology which one would expect someone writing a book on the subject to have researched. He is either too lazy to do the necessary research for his book, or downright dishonest.
What he totally fails to mention, which makes everything he says absolute nonsense:
1. Proteins are not exact. Proteins consist of thousands to hundreds of thousands of amino acids. Typically only some of these are absolutely essential. If you examined in detail the proteins in one human and compared them to the proteins in another human you would find differences in most of the proteins.
2. The same applies to genes. The letters that code for genes are not an exact one to one relationship to the protein. There are some letters that are interchangeable. There are mutations that make no difference whatsoever to the protein.
I would go as far as to say that there is not one single gene that is universal ie that every human on the planet has the exact same gene.
Our overall genetic code is unique to each individual human, and infarct I believe is unique to every single cell in our bodies. Yet the author makes out that every human is identical genetically with identical proteins and that any changes whatsoever would be fatal.
The author doesn't know much relevant biology and his calculations are nonsense.
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Originally posted by twhitehead
OK, I have read the full text and he does make the exact false assertion that I suggested he might be making. He is talking utter nonsense.
He is claiming that every letter of every gene in every living thing is the only possible letter it could be for that organism to survive and that the organisms currently living today are the only possible organisms that could survive today.
Utter nonsense.
OK, I have read the full text and he does make the exact false assertion that I suggested he might be making. He is talking utter nonsense.
According to your own admission so far, you did not read the "full text" of the model I wrote about. You claim to have read the "full text" of something else. This you accuse of being utter nonsense.
I suppose by guilt association you want the readers to assume "utter nonsense" refers to what you did not read the "full text" of.
He is claiming that every letter of every gene in every living thing is the only possible letter it could be for that organism to survive and that the organisms currently living today are the only possible organisms that could survive today.
Utter nonsense.
On which paragraph on pages 107 through 117 is this information ? Quoting it would be helpful to discussing it.
My first pass over this portion leads me to think that it should convince any reader that the models proposed are generous, lenient and making unrealistic favorable assumptions to evolutionary theory.
You seem to be implying that he is doing the [i]opposite[/b]. That is constructing the models so that they are overly stringent, unrealistically strict, and in favor of producing an unfriendly to Evolution outcome.
I protest at this general tone of your criticism. The man is being generously lenient with his models. And again, these are models that I did not yet really talk about.
Examples of this leniency within the pages you said you read the full text to are here:
But this model is too strict. All "erroneous" mutations, for example, may not be fatal. It is possible to envision a sequence in which the thousand steps can be accomplished with far fewer than [100 to the 600th power] random trails.
[Third paragraph on pg. 107]
He would rather err on the side of a forgiving, lenient model.
If we take the most "optimistic" model or forgiving set of assumptions in the thousand-mutation sequence, then the difficulty of achieving the desired organ fades to triviality. Allow mutations to occur in any order with no fatalities for incorrect mutations, Assume that the correct mutations are retained (that is they are locked into the DNA and never mutated away) and allow all of the thousand potential sites which do not yet have the correct nucleotide base to mutate each generation.
[Fourth paragrath, pg. 107]
I could go on. But at this point I am concerned that your representation of Schroeder nonsensically weighting his discussion to be unfair to Evolution is not accurate and not fair.
I looked for the word "letter" to pin-point what you have not yet quoted. (Unless you quote while I was writing this).
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Originally posted by twhitehead
I note you have not read my previous posts.
The online version has different page numbers.
Are you willing to discuss it, or are you going to continue to try and sideline the thread into a stupid argument over page numbers?
The author of the book makes the demonstrably false assumption that he knows what proteins or DNA sequences are necessary for life. Do you deny this?
I note you have not read my previous posts.
Its possible that I have not yet read something you wrote.
The online version has different page numbers.
Can you cut and paste the portions you're talking about so I can compare with the text before me ?
Are you willing to discuss it, or are you going to continue to try and sideline the thread into a stupid argument over page numbers?
I am discussing it and you are being dishonest to whine about me "continuing" to do something else. And your complaining about sidelining and [edited] my relevant points which you dismiss as "stupid" continues it will appear that the one reluctant to discuss is actually you.
The author of the book makes the demonstrably false assumption that he knows what proteins or DNA sequences are necessary for life. Do you deny this?
I don't have enough information in the way of you quoting to make a decision to deny or confirm.
I affirm that the general tone of the author is to present lenient models to make his point. And I affirm that said that the difficulty with all such models is to make them most accurately resemble the real world.
You are arguing with a [edited] doctor degreed physicist professor. (Not me, Gerald Schroeder).
Do you think you are going to easily dismiss him as a quack ?
I need you to quote this matter you call "utter nonsense".
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Originally posted by sonship
According to your own admission so far, you did not read the "full text" of the model I wrote about. You claim to have read the "full text" of something else. This you accuse of being utter nonsense.
I suppose by guilt association you want the readers to assume "utter nonsense" refers to what you did not read the "full text" of.
This criticism of mine may be erroneous IF I can find out exactly what twhitehead claims he read.
Why page numbers should differ is yet a puzzle unsolved.
Originally posted by sonshipI read the text leading up to and surrounding the bit you quoted.
According to your own admission so far, you did not read the "full text" of the model I wrote about. You claim to have read the "full text" of something else. This you accuse of being utter nonsense.
Now are you going to just continue with your stupid claims that I didn't read enough, or are you going to address my points?
So far you have totally ignore the points I have made and instead pretended over and over that I didn't read the necessary bits. Whether I read the necessary bits is irrelevant if my point is valid.
On which paragraph on pages 107 through 117 is this information ? Quoting it would be helpful to discussing it.
You apparently have access to a version that can be copy/pasted. Go ahead and copy paste the full two pages.
My first pass over this portion leads me to think that it should convince any reader that the models proposed are generous, lenient and making unrealistic favourable assumptions to evolutionary theory.
Incorrect. The models are absolute utter nonsense.
You seem to be implying that he is doing the opposite
Yes. He doesn't know what he is talking about.
And he makes the false assumption that I have mentioned multiple times already and that you have ignored:
He claims to know what proteins or DNA sequences are necessary for life.
I protest at this general tone of your criticism. The man is being generously lenient with his models. And again, these are models that I did not yet really talk about.
The 'general tone' of my criticism is irrelevant. I have pointed out a critical flaw in his whole argument which renders the whole argument nonsense. I have pointed it out very specifically.
It is noted that you have failed utterly to mention my actual criticism or address it in any way despite having the time to:
1. Falsely claim that I have not read the relevant parts.
2. Argue over page numbers.
3. Complain about my general tone.
4. Pretend you can't find what I am talking about (which is rich coming from someone who is complaining that I haven't read it. Have you read it?)
5. Demand that I retype the pages of text in this thread because you are too lazy to go read it online.
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Originally posted by twhiteheadThe author doesn't know much relevant biology and his calculations are nonsense.
Actually I will go further.
The author demonstrates some knowledge of proteins and DNA and lists some statistics of them and the number of species etc suggesting he has done a little bit of research into the matter. Yet he overlooks some well known facts about biology which one would expect someone writing a book on the subject to have researched. He is ...[text shortened]... ld be fatal.
The author doesn't know much relevant biology and his calculations are nonsense.
So how may peer reviewed articles have you written on the topic that have been published in scientific journals? And what are your academic qualifications relative to his. This is quite rich coming from the same person who claimed to be an ignoramus on the matter a short while ago.
Originally posted by sonshipIt's really not a big puzzle at all if you know anything at all about publishing. The real puzzle unsolved is why you are unable to address the point I actually made and instead keep harping on about page numbers.
Why page numbers should differ is yet a puzzle unsolved.
You were able to quote an extract of the book which is what started this discussion of it. Presumably you read what you quoted and the surrounding text.
Did you understand what the book says?
Do you agree that the argument and calculations in the book make the assumption that the author is able to identify in some way which proteins or DNA sequences for genes are necessary for life.
Do you plan to waffle on about page numbers for another week before addressing my above concern?
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Originally posted by twhitehead
Actually I will go further.
Before you "go further" I would like to locate the legitimacy of what you have so far accused.
The author demonstrates some knowledge of proteins and DNA and lists some statistics of them and the number of species etc suggesting he has done a little bit of research into the matter. Yet he overlooks some well known facts about biology which one would expect someone writing a book on the subject to have researched. He is either too lazy to do the necessary research for his book, or downright dishonest.
If so why do you not express a similar concern with Schoerder pointing out the weakness of Richard Dawkins' statistical probability illustration ? Dawkins IS a Biologist. And the sloppy or otherwise oversight of Dawkins' model is pointed out by Schroeder on page 103 of my addition.
The sentence generating computer problem erroneously weights the algorithm so that success of a portion of the targeted sentence is kind of frozen. In other words UNLIKE Evolution it is GOAL DIRECTED.
The only way random letter generation has a prayer of producing meaningful sentences is if the programmer instructs the computer how to recognize meaningfulness and how to preserve it. The same may be said for random mutations in the genome producing useful strings of amino acids (proteins) and their preservation. But this supposes that nature knows what is good for it. -[ Schroeder pg. 101]
What excuse does Richard Dawkins have for overlooking that Evolution is believed to be a goalless process? He's your biology expert. Why don't you have a similar concern for the weakness of his analogy ?
How come no retort of "absolute nonsense" about Dawkins claiming with a few generations (somewhere around 40 I think) a random letter generator could produce a Shakespeare sentence ?
Schroeder wrote:
In addition, a conceptual error is frequently encountered. Questions are often asked about the probability that a specific animal or organ could have evolved by random processes. ...
The error of these questions lies in the assumption that evolution was seeking a specific goal. Basic to the entire concept of evolution is that no goal exists. If flatworms had not emerged from the evolutionary cauldron, then roundworms, or square worms, or perhaps no worms but an altogether different animal would populate that ecological niche today.
Richard Dawkins is your expert. You didn't flag a weakness in his logic in his model that Schroeder noticed.