From: keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle)
Subject: Re: Probability of Evolution
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 07:30:26 GMT


kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us writes:
>Why, in the alleged process of evolution, did extremely complex living
>organisms evolve instead of only simple formless blobs of organic or
>inorganic matter? After all, the laws of physics allow formless blobs to
>exist, and even to undergo change, don't they? Therefore, we can at
>least try to estimate the probability that evolution would have produced
>a universe full of nothing but varieties of non-living blobs instead of
>a universe with many different types of living organisms.

BZZZT!  False premise.  The reason organisms became more complex over
time is that they couldn't have gotten simpler and still survive.
It is an environment where the only direction complexity can go is
up.   Its kind of like the initial conditions of a bounded version
of the "drunks walk" random movement of an object like this:

  |------------------------|
  |                        |
  |                        |
  |                        |
  |o                       |
  |                        |
  |                        |
  |                        |
  |------------------------|

And then asking why over time the object doesn't just stay against the
left wall.

If the proto-organisms get less complex, they won't even survive,
and since they are not prevented from becoming more complex,
and a difference in complexity can result from an mutationally
produced increase in survivability, there's nowhere to go from
there but up (in average complexity).

>We do this by
>applying methods of measuring information-theoretic complexity to the
>types of material configurations we observe in the world, including
>cellular proteins. We reason that the more complex a material
>configuration, the more difficult or time consuming it would be for it
>to have been produced from very simple constituents under the action of
>(also simple) physical laws, if the process were guided solely by a
>blind "natural selection".

BZZZT!  Straw man.  This seems to presume that the entire configuration
can only come together all at once or nothing.  This does not take into
account that accumulated minor modifications will over time add up
to an increase in complexity, something that has been demonstrated
computationally.

>If it turns out that most of the possible
>configurations allowed by the laws of physics are those which are
>formless blobs, and that only a tiny number of possible configurations
>allow for living organisms, then the probabilities that we estimate will
>reflect this fact. Right?

Wrong.  Natural selection will efficiently select only those which
survive out of the set of configurations that are derived from existing
configurations by simple modifications.  Organisms that don't survive
are immediately edited out.  Ones that gain a slight amount of complexity
are not automatically edited out.  There is a clear bias is in favor of
an increase in complexity over time, only because there is a bias against
any decrease in complexity below the minimum required for survival.

>Depending on how we estimate these probabilities (and this is the source
>of the controversy), we can come up with an idea of how likely, or
>unlikely, it is that natural selection is truly "blind", as is claimed
>by most of the leading proponents of molecular evolution.

You're way off track now, basing this argument on the previous
bogus assumptions.

>If we find
>that the probability of the evolution of living organisms is extremely
>tiny, so tiny that even given a time period far longer than the
>estimated age of the earth there is still only a miniscule chance of
>an organism appearing, then we are within reason (or within standard
>statistical confidence limits) to propose that something else has guided
>the progress of this evolution, something with purpose and intent, a
>not-so-blind watchmaker.

Even if the probability was extremely tiny, it does not automatically
follow this means intelligence must be involved.  Certainly the
examples of bad design would call into question just how intelligent
such a guiding intelligence could be.

>Or, we would be within reason to propose that
>evolution itself is not the process that has led to the appearance of
>living organisms. Or, and this is what many evolutionists propose, that
>even though the odds were very small, nevertheless, evolution somehow
>"just happened".

You haven't demonstrated that the odds are particularly small, but
I don't have a particular problem with this in any event.  Miniscule
odds are still better scientific odds than the odds for a miracle
are.

>Now, we admit that our determination of probabilities is based on
>premises which are falsifiable.

And have been demonstrated false.

>But this is also true of the probabilistic arguments of evolutionists.

What probabilistic arguments?  The only one I've seen is that the
probabilities are unknown (cite some specifics if you disagree).
Lacking useful probability evidence of any kind, we therefore look
at other types of evidence to make a determination.  And guess what?
There's plenty.

>You
>may indeed dispute our premises, and we are willing to consider your
>alternative ones.

>But of course you must state them first! If you simply
>wish to dismiss all probabilistic arguments as too vague or inherently
>fallacious, then I don't see how we can get much accomplished by all
>this posting back and forth.

I am perfectly willing to consider probabilistic arguments.  However,
the ones you have presented here have glaring flaws, in particular
from ignoring the fact that complexity is accumulated through the
filtering process of natural selection, it does not appear all at
once.

Such a filtering process has been used by aerospace design engineers
(among others) to find optimal designs in a problem space far too large
to discover by other means.  This plainly demonstrates the ability
of natural selection to find optimal solutions out of a huge array of
possible (and mostly non-optimal) solutions.  Natural selection operates
somewhat like a binary search in that it will recursively subdivide the
problem space until it homes in on a desirable solution (based on how
well it meets the selection criteria, in our case, survivability).

>More broadly, we propose that the standard plea of the evolutionists
>that it is now certain that molecular evolution is "the way" in which
>life has arisen in the universe does not follow from any or all of the
>premises of the theory of evolution.

Well, back to the drawing board.  You certainly haven't shown in
any way otherwise.

>That it does not follow from them
>does not prove that evolution didn't happen, only that the stated
>reasons why it must have happened are insufficient to guarantee it. This
>suggests that claims of the certainty of evolution are premature, and
>that further investigation is needed. We believe that the fact that
>evolution is being presented this way in spite of a lack of sufficient
>theoretical support indicates that there are other motives involved than
>the sincere search for scientific truth.

>The
>results of posting on this newsgroup have convinced me that this is
>more than a simple issue of the search for truth. What is going on here
>is a war between world-views.

You're perfectly entitled to your paranoid conspiratorial opinions.

>Because of this, we think it is useful, indeed essential, to begin
>discussing other proposals for the origin of life, and to do this within
>the language of science as far as is possible.

Then I'd suggest you'd better learn it a little better than John Belushi
had learned Japanese for his "Samarai-" skits.

>If certain supposedly
>"religious" sources can provide us with clues to other possible
>explanations of the origin of life, then we do not see any reason why
>these sources should be treated with scorn,

I don't propose they be treated with scorn, but if you are proposing
them as science, therefore I do expect them to be treated with proper
scientific scrutiny.  Unfortunately, religious sources have already
been subjected to more scientific scrutiny than just about any other
sources, and have been found seriously wanting in the science department.

>Although it is the creationists who are often portrayed as unreasoning,
>wild-eyed fanatics, I have had recent personal experience of precisely
>that kind of behavior from those purporting to be evolutionists.

The reason you find most scientists to be impatient with your ideas, is
because they've heard it all before many many times, and have found
that when a potential critic of evolution demonstrates that he hasn't
the slightest idea what science or the theory of evolution has actually
found and how, that they are completely unqualified to be engaging in
such debates which immediately break down into pseudoscientific diatribes.

For example, how much patience would you expect a microchip designer to
have with someone who comes along and tries to tell him that micro
electronics can't work due to supernatural forces that cause electrons
to behave unpredictably?  The only difference with evolution is that
it takes a bit more education and investigation to demonstrate how
the conclusion was arrived at, where with a microchip, you can just
turn the power on and demonstrate it to any yo-yo that it works
directly.

>Even in a
>so-called "primordial soup" there are several varieties of molecules,
>and to extrapolate the long term future of such a soup with the kind of
>precision needed to show that a highly complex organism will be formed
>in it through the action of the laws of physics is practically an
>exercise in fantasy.

What has been demonstrated, is that you don't need anywhere near the
initial complexity of the kind of "primordial soup" that actually
existed, in order for a complex organism to form.  The simulations
show that it only takes a relatively simple "soup" for the process
to occur, which would indicate that in a more complex "soup" there
would be even more possible combinations.  True, there are also
more "impossible" combinations along with the expanded range of
"possible" combinations, but natural selection has computationally
shown to be darn good at finding some possible combinations out of
a large number of potentially impossible combinations.

Keith
Newsgroups: talk.origins