Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site uw-june Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-june!palmer From: palmer@uw-june.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Some numbers for the Creation (long reply) Message-ID: <1350@uw-june> Date: Mon, 30-Apr-84 20:51:17 EDT Article-I.D.: uw-june.1350 Posted: Mon Apr 30 20:51:17 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 1-May-84 19:35:53 EDT References: <111@ssc-vax.UUCP> Organization: U. Washington, Computer Sci Lines: 144 fnord David Norris has been trying to refute chance evolution using numerical arguments. However, his methods aren't worth a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys. His argument is taken from Boa & Moody's "I'm Glad You Asked", so I guess he does not really deserve all the blame :-). Boa & Moody is indented, my reply is not "Beginning with the first step, many evolutionists assume a primordial earthly atmosphere with no oxygen so that amino acids could be formed. However, the very atmosphere that could produce them would immediately lead to their destruction (due to ultraviolet light penetrating this oxygen-free atmosphere) unless they were protected. Unfounded assumptions must be multiplied to overcome this problem. It is quite reasonable to assume a primordial Earth atmosphere with no oxygen. Oxygen is quite reactive, and before photosynthetic plants arrived, there was little enough being produced (through photolysis, volcanoes, etc.) that it rapidly combined with other chemicals. Ultraviolet light may be able to penetrate the methane, nitroxides, etc. which made up the original atmosphere, (I do not know, I do not have a table of UV transmission coefficients here) but it wouldn't be able to penetrate ordinary clouds, which were probably abundant, or a few inches of water. An "unfounded assumption" would be that life could only evolve at the surface of the land or water, on sunny days. On the next level, let us assume an ideal environment with a primordial soup full of amino acids and the proper catalysts, with just the right temperature and moisture. Some estimate that under these favorable conditions the chances of getting dipeptides (two amino acids bonded) would be about 1 in 100. But the chances of tripeptide formation would be about 1 in 10,000. To get a polypeptide of only 10 amino acids, the probability would be 1 chance in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (100 quintillion). Yet the proteins in the simplest living things have chains of at least 400 amino acids on the average. I don't understand this estimate. Does it say that for any amino acid, there will be a 1% chance of getting a dipeptide? Or does it say that if you have a planet covered with the stuff, there will be one chance in a hundred of there being a dipeptide? And is that while the soup is in equilibrium, or is that after a time of one second, day, year, eon, or cosmic cycle? Lets assume that the estimate means that, in equilibrium, for every 100 amino acids, there is one dipeptide. Suppose that, in order for self-replication, to occur, you need a PARTICULAR string of ten amino acids. This is probably being very generous to the creationists. First of all, if there is one self-replicating molecule of some length, there are probably many. Secondly, the shortest self-replicating molecule may be shorter than ten amino acids long. The simplest self-replicating substance I know of is an obscure molecule which scientists call "water" (chemical symbol: H2O). If you take a glass bulb filled with two parts by volume of hydrogen and one part by volume of oxygen, and you heat it to a few hundred degree Celsius, you'll probably become bored when nothing happens. If, however, you introduce a few droplets of water into that heated mixture, the little blighters will really go to, and when their procreative energy finally abates and the orgy ends, you'll find yourself picking pieces of wet glass out of the scorched walls of the room. (If you were in the room at the time, then you got what you deserved, you peeping-Tom pervert, but my condolences to your family. If you survived, then agian, my condolences to your family :-) I would not call water molecules alive, but the person who estmated the 1/100 number for dipeptides would probably give a somewhat lower number for the chance of hydrogen and oxygen coming together. Anyway, let us see if this particular string of ten amino acids has any probability of occuring. Firstly, there are 20 amino acids, and the chance of a link-up to any amino acid is 1/100. Therefore, the chance of linking up with the right amino acid is 1/(20*100), if you add handedness, then the chances of linking to the right type are 1/(2*20*100). The chance of getting ten successsful link-ups to the right amino acids of the right parity is 1/(4000)^10 or 1E-36 (thats one in an unodecillion (I think) for right thinking people, and one in a sextillion for Brits :-). This seems like a very small chance, but seeming isn't believing. Lets assume that the Earth is covered, on average, by 100 meters of a 1% solution of amino acids. (I realize that creationists would allow me to assume that it was covered to the height of Mount Arrarat, but I'm being conservative.) This gives a total number of amino acid molecules of (and you can work this out for yourself if you want) 1E43 amino acid molcules, give or take a few orders of magnitude. Thus, there would be ten million self-replicationg molecules at first, but once you have a self replicating molecule, much of the primordial soup will become that molecule. Now, you've got a bunch of soup which is not primordial, but contains chains of about ten amino acids. Eventually, a bunch of those chains will come together in just the right way, and become a self-replicating supermolecule. This is similar to an ordinary self-replicating molecule, except that it puts together ordinary self-replicating molecules to make copies of itself. Eventually DNA (or the quintuply stellated octahelix :-) or some such thing gets invented, and gives one particular type of molecule a huge advantage which allows it to take over. This process goes on and on, and eventually you have something which you have to call life (If only because it slurphs up to you on its fnurmlies and greckles you in no uncertain terms that its alive.) One objection creationists make is that the chances of creating the genes to make a man by this process are as close to zero as makes no never mind. This is an incredibly subtle and stupid argument. The chance that your parents' different sperm and ova came together in just the right way to create you are incredible, and if you combine that with the probabilities of your grandparents' sperm and ova... etc. etc., etc. I can rapidly run up the odds to one in googles of googles of googles of... so that it is as close as spitting to impossible that you exist. The fact that you do exist is due to an incredible coincidence. (You can blame it on G-d if you want, but I don't). The fact that we walk on our feet instead of slurphing on our fnurmlies (or doing something incomprehensible) is due to the same type of coincidence. David Norris mentions that: Earlier in the chapter, it was noted that the time required for 1 million monkeys typing at 100 words/minute, 24 hours a day on typewriters with 40 keys to type the first four words of a Shakepearian play would be about 100 billion years. Just as an aside, the time it would take these million fast-typing, never-sleeping monkeys to type the first four words of one of Shakespeare's plays is about 1E24 years (one septillion for North Americans, one quadrillion for the British). If you can't trust Boa & Moody on simple calculations, why should you trust them on the origin of life. ________ "Every day its the same thing--variety. I want something different." David Palmer