Abiogenesis and Probabilities

[DrNoGods]

I'm creating a new thread here to continue debate on a post made by EarthScience guy on another thread (Science and Religion > Artificial life: can it be created?, post 17). This post challenged probability calculations in an old Talkorigins article that I had linked in that thread:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

Are the arguments (on creationist views) and probabilities presented reasonable in the Talkorigins article? If not, why not?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #378]

Unfortunately, these have both long been proven to be "things." A statement like this is just as nonsensical as claiming that cheese does not exist because you don't like cheese. Do you believe in artificial selection (eg. breeding dairy cows for better milk production, or corn for higher yields, etc.)? Nature can do the same kind of thing, as proven countless times.

You mean like survival of the fittest. How are you defining fittest? Are you defining fittest as the one that survives? If so that would make that statement a tautology.

1. A higher milk yield would be only beneficial if there were plenty of food and water available. Otherwise lower milk production would be beneficial.

2. How would this have anything to do with evolution? Higher milk production is not any new function. The cow is simply doing what it was created to do.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #379]

It comes down to what the evidence shows. And even knowledgeable YE creationists admit that there is very good evidence for the evolution of lungs from simple chordates. Given that there is no scriptural support for denying this evolution, and that there is abundant evidence for it, one has to conclude that it did evolve.

1. Which group of YE creationists admits that there is very good evidence for the evolution of lungs from simple chordates?
2. Genesis 1, God created animals according to their "kinds". "Kind is translated from the Hebrew word "min" which means species.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #380]

It's directly observed. Even organizations like "Answers in Genesis" admit that natural selection is a fact. Would you like me to show you? And of course, we have many, many examples of favorable mutations. The HPAS1 allele that allows Tibetans to live and reproduce at very high altitudes is an example that evolved in humans in the last few thousand years. Would you like to learn about more of them?

1. Answers in Genesis believes that there can be change within a kind, caused by environmental stressors which result in a loss of function.
2. Like for example your HPAS1 "evolution" reduces the hemoglobin concentrations. Because when those without HPAS1 "evolution" go to higher altitudes their body naturally increases the hemoglobin concentrations. This is not an increase in function, it is a decrease in an existing function. Which is a normal occurrence for your "favorable mutations".

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #382]

You mean like survival of the fittest. How are you defining fittest? Are you defining fittest as the one that survives? If so that would make that statement a tautology.

Where did I use the phrase survival of the fittest? Nothing in the above quote came from me.

1. A higher milk yield would be only beneficial if there were plenty of food and water available. Otherwise lower milk production would be beneficial.

2. How would this have anything to do with evolution? Higher milk production is not any new function. The cow is simply doing what it was created to do.

Missed the point entirely. I was responding to Noose001 who stated (post 375) "No such thing as natural selection or beneficial mutations." I asked if he believed in artificial selection, and gave selective breeding of dairy cows (artificially by humans) for higher milk production as an example, along with corn for higher yields. Breeding cows for higher milk yields benefits humans, not the cows! Ditto for corn yields. These are called artificial selection because we humans are changing the animal or plant characteristics to benefit us, but it is done by selecting breeding along with other optimizations (diet, fertilizers, etc.).

The point was that IF some genetic changes occurred naturally, and these benefitted the animal or plant such that it could survive and reproduce "better" in its environment (via whatever benefit was provided ... faster to escape from attackers, a more poisonous venom, etc.) then natural selection would operate in a similar way to allow the numbers of animals or plants with the beneficial mutations to grow in the population, and eventually fix the changes in the population.

If you believe that artificial selection is a thing, then you cannot deny natural selection as a thing.

[The Barbarian]

It's directly observed. Even organizations like "Answers in Genesis" admit that natural selection is a fact. Would you like me to show you? And of course, we have many, many examples of favorable mutations. The HPAS1 allele that allows Tibetans to live and reproduce at very high altitudes is an example that evolved in humans in the last few thousand years. Would you like to learn about more of them?

1. Answers in Genesis believes that there can be change within a kind, caused by environmental stressors which result in a loss of function.

Natural selection can do that. Some island species of beetles have evolved flightlessness by natural selection, with perfectly-formed wings trapped under fused elytra. Evolved a loss of function by natural selection. But as you just learned, it also can produce new functions, like the one the evolved Tibean EPAS1 allele does.

Like for example your HPAS1 "evolution" reduces the hemoglobin concentrations.

No. The concentration of hemoglobin in Tibetans with this new allele is about what yours is, unless you live at higher altitudes. (In which case your hemoglobin would be higher than theirs. You see, the usual human response to low oxygen levels is to produce more hemoglobin. This works up to a point,but then produces high elevation sickness. The EPAS1 gene gets around this by a new function that makes the enyzme more stable and more effective at sequestering oxygen.

Because when those without HPAS1 "evolution" go to higher altitudes their body naturally increases the hemoglobin concentrations. This is not an increase in function, it is a decrease in an existing function.

No, you've been misled about that:
PNAS June 22, 2010 107 (25) 11459-11464
Natural selection on EPAS1 (HIF2α) associated with low hemoglobin concentration in Tibetan highlanders
...The alleles associating with lower hemoglobin concentrations were correlated with the signal from the GWADS study and were observed at greatly elevated frequencies in the Tibetan cohorts compared with the Han. High hemoglobin concentrations are a cardinal feature of chronic mountain sickness offering one plausible mechanism for selection.

Which is a normal occurrence for your "favorable mutations".

And you you know better. BTW, you don't seem to know what biological evolution is. What do you think it is?

Not long ago, scientists discovered that a population of lizards, moved to a new environment, rapidly evolved a new digestive organ (among other things)
Examination of the lizard’s digestive tracts revealed something even more surprising. Eating more plants caused the development of new structures called cecal valves, designed to slow the passage of food by creating fermentation chambers in the gut, where microbes can break down the difficult to digest portion of plants. Cecal valves, which were found in hatchlings, juveniles and adults on Pod Mrcaru, have never been reported for this species, including the source population on Pod Kopiste.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 112433.htm

There's lots more. Would you like to see some more? And do tell us what you think the scientific definition of biological evolution is.

[The Barbarian]

It comes down to what the evidence shows. And even knowledgeable YE creationists admit that there is very good evidence for the evolution of lungs from simple chordates. Given that there is no scriptural support for denying this evolution, and that there is abundant evidence for it, one has to conclude that it did evolve.

1. Which group of YE creationists admits that there is very good evidence for the evolution of lungs from simple chordates?

Evidences for Darwin’s second expectation — of stratomorphic intermediate species — include such species as Baragwanathia27 (between rhyniophytes and lycopods), Pikaia28 (between echinoderms and chordates), Purgatorius29 (between the tree shrews and the primates), and Proconsul30 (between the non-hominoid primates and the hominoids)...Plesiadapus primate series,38 and the hominid series.39 Evidence for not just one but for all three of the species level and above types of stratomorphic intermediates expected by macroevolutionary theory is surely strong evidence for macroevolutionary theory. Creationists therefore need to accept this fact.
YE creationist Dr. Kurt Wise, Toward a Creationist Understanding of Transitional Forms

Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.

I say these things not because I'm crazy or because I've "converted" to evolution. I say these things because they are true. I'm motivated this morning by reading yet another clueless, well-meaning person pompously declaring that evolution is a failure. People who say that are either unacquainted with the inner workings of science or unacquainted with the evidence for evolution. (Technically, they could also be deluded or lying, but that seems rather uncharitable to say. Oops.)

Creationist students, listen to me very carefully: There is evidence for evolution, and evolution is an extremely successful scientific theory. That doesn't make it ultimately true, and it doesn't mean that there could not possibly be viable alternatives. It is my own faith choice to reject evolution, because I believe the Bible reveals true information about the history of the earth that is fundamentally incompatible with evolution. I am motivated to understand God's creation from what I believe to be a biblical, creationist perspective. Evolution itself is not flawed or without evidence. Please don't be duped into thinking that somehow evolution itself is a failure. Please don't idolize your own ability to reason. Faith is enough.
YE Creationist Dr. Todd Wood, The Truth About Evolution

2. Genesis 1, God created animals according to their "kinds".

Actually He said "kind", not "kinds." Animals are one kind.
Genesis 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind

Even creationists admit this much. They just don't approve of the way He did it.

"Kind is translated from the Hebrew word "min" which means species.

BTW, both "Answers in Genesis" and the Institute for Creation Research now admit the evolution of new species, genera, and sometimes families of organisms.

Have you found the scientific definition for biological evolution, yet?

[The Barbarian]

The creationist view of natural selection is supported biblically and scientifically. Natural selection is a God-ordained process that allows organisms to survive. It is an observable reality that occurs in the present and takes advantage of the variations within the kinds and works to preserve the genetic viability of the kinds.
https://answersingenesis.org/natural-selection/

Before the time of Charles Darwin, a false idea had crept into the church—the belief in the “fixity” or “immutability” of species. According to this view, each species was created in precisely the same form that we find it today. The Bible nowhere teaches that species are fixed and unchanging.
https://answersingenesis.org/natural-se ... peciation/

AiG says that natural selection is not evolution. They have that right. Natural selection is an agency of evolution.

AiG says that common descent of many species is not evolution. That's right, too. It's a consequence of evolution.

Have you found out what biological evolution is, yet?

[The Barbarian]

REGULATION O F NEWLY EVOLVED ENZYMES. IV. DIRECTED EVOLUTION OF THE EBG REPRESSOR
BARRY G. HALL
Microbiology Section, Biological Sciences Group,
University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut
ABSTRACT
In Escherichia coli, the wild-type repressor of ebg (evolved p-galactosidase) enzyme synthesis, specified by the ebgR+ gene, responds very weakly to lactulose (fructose-P-D-galactopyranoside) . Selection for a functional repressor that responds strongly to lactulose as an inducer reveals the existence of ebgR+L mutants, which occur spontaneously at a frequency of about 2x e b g R f L mutants are pleiotropic in that they specify ebg repressor with a greatly increased response to lactulose, lactose, galactose-arabinoside and methyl-galactoside as inducers. Selection of ebgR + L mutants is discussed within the framework of directed evolution of a regulatory function.

[Bradskii]

You mean like survival of the fittest. How are you defining fittest? Are you defining fittest as the one that survives? If so that would make that statement a tautology.

Yikes. I thought you said you knew about evolution. And you don't even know what 'fittest' means in that context?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Bradskii in post #389]

Yikes. I thought you said you knew about evolution. And you don't even know what 'fittest' means in that context?

Define fitness in terms of evolution without using survival.