Digging around for proof of God's existence

IMO, Evolution is the only game in the scientific town.

ID does not actually explain anything. It is simply, "Goddunnit". That's great, but how did he do it? If you're going to call it a Scientific Theory, then you must at least try to explain that.

@vivify

The DNA molecule's combination of amino acids instructs how a protein is to be manufactured. Ie. It has to fold in on itself in a particular way. An example of a relatively "small" length DNA molecule is used to illustrate the probability of instructions producing a protein that folds properly to be a valid biologically useful structure.

He is using as a sample size of opportunities to randomly hit a proper folding instructions from every individual living organism that has lived on the planet in the available time living organisms have lived on the planet.

The issues is can the random mutation natural selection mechanism could generate enough biological information to build a new animal or new protein in the time available to the evolutionary process.

Random changes for instance to computer code more likely to generate gibberish.
Alphabetic text or digital code in meaningful sentences of functioning code, when randomly modified are more likely to degrade the information. Given enough opportunity a modification would produce meaning for additional information.

DNA has a genetic text. There are vastly more ways to arrange the instruction conveying arrangements that will produce gibberish. There are many times less ways to arrange the code so as to produce meaning. He starts with the example of a DNA molecule of 150 amino acids long for a workable scenario.

Remember the code in the DNA molecule is specifying how to manufacture protein needed. The genetic code faces this difficulty in the random variation scenario in which a new protein is generated. The combinatorial problem has to do with the number of ways a set of objects can be arranged.

ie. Take a bicycle lock with four little dials with digits 0 through 9. Only ONE arrangement of the four dials will be the correct combination to open the lock.
There are 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 possibilities or 10,000 possible combinations. A random search for the one correct combination would most likely take a time depending on how fast each combination can be tried. Random trying rather than systematic trying might be say 10 seconds per random arrangement of the four dials.

The right one could be hit by chance if some thief, let's say, tries one combination every 10 seconds as he works on the dials. That would be more random then systematically. Systematically and not randomly, he could have searches which took less time if he modified only one dial as the others remained in place.
But we are talking about a none systematic and random variation of the combinations taking let's say 10 seconds an arrangement.

In fifteen HOURS a very diligent search could cover more than 5,000 combinations. That is more than half of the total number of combinations. He might succeed in fifteen hours. But he might not too.

Now if we use a lock with MORE dials the number of possible combinations goes up. And more time is needed to randomly arrive at a sufficient number of combinations that maybe the right one is discovered.

If the lock has 10 dials instead of 4 we get 10 billion combinations rather than 10 thousand with the previous lock. You need more time because the number of possible combinations has increased exponentially. With only ONE combination that will open the lock out of 10 billion possible ones you can see random search to cover even HALF the number needed is going to require more time.

Even devoting one's entire life to searching randomly through 10 billion possible combinations he is more likely to fail and never randomly hit on the winning arrangement of the 10 digits that open the lock.

Now we're talking about a random mutation that will produce a new protein from a long DNA molecule. The analogy, he says, is closer to the 10 billion possibilities on a 10 dial lock than 10,000 on a 4 dial lock.

In the 1960s it was harder to make this analogy because micro biologist did not adequately understand the biological case. Since those earlier days molecular biologist have a better understanding the specialty of protein folding for usefulness. Now that the number of possible combination given any sequence of DNA grows with the length of the molecule in question.

Taking a short DNA molecule of say 150 amino acids long. There are with that relatively "shorter" molecule there are 10 to the power of 195th other arrangements of amino acids of that length. That is a gargantuan number of possible arrangements.

Now we have to consider how many of that gigantic arrangement of amino acids is actually functional. The random search for a arrangement of a functional combination would not have a high probability of success. It would have a low probability of success. First evolutionists thought the sequence is not that specialized. In other words it was at first thought that maybe proteins are not that finnicky and don't really care which amino acids are where in the combinations.

The data collected then proves that it is extremely RARE that among the vast number of possible sequences of amino acids. How rare? Micro biologist Doug Axe proposed an answer in his methodology in the lab to explore the problem.

His experiments supposedly revealed that for every DNA sequence that generates a functional protein of 150 amino acids in length there are 10 to the 77 power arrangements that will [not] [edited] fold into a three dimensional structure of performing that biological function. That is 1 / 10 to the 77th power sequences. Compared to the bike lock analogy that is like randomly finding the right combination to a lock with 10 digits on each of 77 dials.

Random mutation scrambling around the sequence of 150 amino acids to arrive at a functionally useful and valid one requires too large an amount of time. With large amount of time more opportunities to hit a valid sequence could happen. The improbable could conceivably happen with many opportunities for the improbable event to happen.

The opportunities for this to happen take the form of living organisms in which a mutation could occur which conceivably randomly produce a valid combination in a DNA molecule of said length. What has to be overcome is a 1 / 10 to the 77th power odds. The narrator said in the time that life has existed on earth it is estimated that 10 to the 40th power individual organisms have lived.

I don't know who they come up with that number. But we're talking that 10to the 40th power individual organism that have lived since life has been on earth is a relatively minute fraction of 10 to the 77th power

That is 1 trillion trillion trillionth or 1/ 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

There is not enough time in the age of life on earth for even a tiny fraction of all the living creatures to have lived to luck out and hit a DNA sequence which indicates a combination of amino acids to be a valid functioning one in biology.

The conclusion was that - It follow that it is likely that not one new functional protein fold in the entire history of life on earth was randomly produced.

Don't ask me how anybody knows how many individual living organisms have lived on the earth. Scientists also tell me they know how many atoms there are in the galaxy and even in the universe. I don't know how they estimate this with such confidence.

@sonship said
Don't ask me how anybody knows how many individual living organisms have lived on the earth. Scientists also tell me they know how many atoms there are in the galaxy and even in the universe. I don't know how they estimate this with such confidence.

Ask Professor Dave

@mchill said
Be it through mathematics, archology, numerology, biology, genealogy, paleontology or any other arts and sciences, people have been digging around for centuries for proof of God's existence. Well folks, that's A-OK with me, and I'll admit, it's led to some scientific breakthroughs, but IMHO it's running in the wrong direction.

A young rabbi once said "If one has to dig up ...[text shortened]... use you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

This is good analysis.

The mind is tempted to give in to the simplest, most minimalistic understanding of the universe: every single thing must be proven to the eyes; things can only be accounted for empirically...

Yet, in their personal lives, such a standard is never embraced, for it is impractical and laughable. We all accept the logic of things around us - we only dismiss the rationality and predictability of things when it suits us.

Empiricism is trying to grasp a hold on the whole of reality... but really grasping nothing.

@philokalia said
The mind is tempted to give in to the simplest, most minimalistic understanding of the universe: every single thing must be proven to the eyes; things can only be accounted for empirically...

The mind is also tempted, and capable of, imagining whatever it wants about the universe.

@sonship said
Stephen Meyer an ID exponent said it may be time to redefine science's definition.

"Darwinists say they're under some sort of epistemological obligation to continue trying . . . "

He means trying to apply Darwin's nineteenth -century thinking to twenty-first century reality. That is applying explanations from an era of the steamboat are no longer adequate to explai ...[text shortened]... /b] And intelligent design is the explanation that's most in conformity with how the world works."

But as you say he’s a proponent of ID but the problem all ID proponents come up against is explaining how we got here from there, if not evolution then how, also they have to explain away all the solid evidence that screams evolution rather than standing at the edge of evolutionary theory with their middle fingers in the air. Unless they can prove that the designer exists without referencing the supposed design all they have is a theory without a shred of evidence to back it up.

@kevcvs57
Any intelligent design candidate other than magical beings would have to have evolved from scratch to the super intelligent being that was technologically advanced enough to design us. So the only candidate or option to evolution by natural selection must be god or gods. There is no halfway house between the two options whereby evolution is not an integral part of the process. So it’s evolution in its incomplete but logical state or we were poofed into existence by a supernatural creature who probably would have no requirement for something as mundane as intelligence in order to exercise their will.

@kevcvs57

But as you say he’s a proponent of ID but the problem all ID proponents come up against is explaining how we got here from there,

Your caricature seems bitter. First of all if I were you I would try to get over I assuming that a scientist being a "proponent of ID" is wrong. It is not intrinsically a wrong with being a ID "proponent" if one has qualifications to state an opinion on it.

Trained and educated men and women can decide to be a "proponent" of a theory as much as others can be a "proponent" of some other theory. "Proponents of ID are right off the bat to be suspicioned" won't work with many of us going into 21rst century information age. What is important is qualification to speak with some expertise. Particularly expertise with the the opposing or alternative concepts.

Both Stephen Meyer and Douglas Axe have these qualifications.
I would not say I have such qualification on all the relevant issues.
I can speak with some experience with computer language concepts as my degree
was in computer science. I have experience with modification of working programs and know what purposeful modification would do as opposed to random modification.

if not evolution then how, also they have to explain away all the solid evidence that screams evolution rather than standing at the edge of evolutionary theory with their middle fingers in the air.

And to how much degree can random modification plus natural selection well explain the entire biosphere. We know a form of evolution exists from breeding animals, breeding crops, breeding bugs and germs and flies and viruses. The question is how much can we extrapolate that process to cover the emergence of new species.

How much can we extrapolate to apply the process to the tiny micro machines in the factory of cells. The point of the engineering phrase Black Box in Behe's book Darwin's Black Box is that Charles Darwin lived in an age when the CELL was just a blob of unknown jelly. A realm in which you have something the workings of are totally unknown can be called a "black box".

We'll that "black box" in the age of the steam engine and steam boat is no longer a mere unknown blob of jelly. Electron microscopes reveal each cell as factory of sophisticated and complex operations being carried out by the thousands. Translation, transcriptions, transporting, repairing, splicing, sewing together, is being carried out by nano machines.

Darwin today knowing these things very likely would re-think, imo, how limited his paradigm was to explain this. Now we have to take his natural selection through random mutation and apply it to the inner workings of a living cell.

You're right that this gives rise to "proponents" of theories to other explanations.
You cannot just consider traditional education, traditional funding for research, traditional understandings applicable to the age in which the cell was a "black box" science knew nothing about.

Take Michael Denton who embarking on an effort to prove incorrect some notions of say creationists instead found himself to have to reverse some of his notions to accept intelligent deign as the better explanatory scope for things he had before seen as more inevitable chemical combination to occasion life to exist.

Agnostic mathematician David Berlinski also gradually found his questions were not getting answered on the mathematical aspects of what random mutation and natural selection would be able to perform.

Please watch some of mathematician David Berlinski's comments here:
He started to question Darwinian theory as a post doctoral fellow in micro
biology at Columbia University.

David Berlinski Explains Problems With Evolution.
YouTube&ab_channel=dumbidols

I know you find some surrounding hype annoying by those who have theological reasons to heartily welcome ID.

Unless they can prove that the designer exists without referencing the supposed design all they have is a theory without a shred of evidence to back it up.

Remember the difference between "proof" and "the inference to the best explanation".

I have to stop here for now.

Confessed Agnostic mathematician David Berlinski replying to comments to books like "The God Delusion" by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.

David Berlinski—Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions

YouTube&ab_channel=HooverInstitution

@sonship said
@vivify
The issues is can the random mutation natural selection mechanism could generate enough biological information to build a new animal or new protein in the time available to the evolutionary process.

Random changes for instance to computer code more likely to generate gibberish.

This is where your post starts to fall apart. The changes from one generation to the next never produce a "new" animal. No animal is "new"; they're simply varied from their previous ancestors.

A "new" animal would be something like if a duck laid eggs that contained a goose. That doesn't happen, nor does evolution claim it does.

To use the term "new animal" shows a lack of understanding of evolution. No scientist would ever claim "new" animals evolved, only that an organism has gradually varied from previous ancestors enough to receive it's own classification.

@sonship said
@kevcvs57

But as you say he’s a proponent of ID but the problem all ID proponents come up against is explaining how we got here from there,

Your caricature seems bitter. First of all if I were you I would try to get over I assuming that a scientist being a "proponent of ID" is wrong. It is not intrinsically a wrong with being a ID "proponent" ...[text shortened]... ence between "proof" and "the inference to the best explanation".

I have to stop here for now.

I didn’t read most of your text wall but just to say I’m not bitter at all and I did not caricature anyone as wrong I just pointed out that hiding your god or gods behind an intelligent designer label is disingenuous if your argument is based on the supposed impossibility of evolution. It’s god or gods versus evolution. Rather than evolution versus an intelligent designer who may or may not be a god as any other kind of designer would have had to evolve which you claim to be an impossibility.
I’m not sure why you are confused about this logic, but perhaps your more angry than confused.
So in essence your claiming that a supernatural being willing us into existence is more likely than us having evolved from lower life forms.

@vivify

This is where your post starts to fall apart. The changes from one generation to the next never produce a "new" animal. No animal is "new"; they're simply varied from their previous ancestors.

If one varies from its ancestor isn't there something new about the previously absent characteristic.

Macro evolution calls for eventual NEW kind of offspring gradually.
Ie. fish in the water ----> amphibian partially dwelling in water and partially on land ------> land dwelling reptile.

Gradually something new was produced. It is curious that some evolution believers advocate changing into something new and also want to avoid it.
Like you are doing here, when faced with an improbability problem you want to distance yourself from advocating evolution is about evolving from the older to the newer organism.

How did these new creatures come about?
Long time with gradualism via random modification and natural selection.
The concept is the minute NEW features accumulate until something new is
produced by small increments.

So why are you going to run from the concept now saying no new living living organisms are being produced?

A "new" animal would be something like if a duck laid eggs that contained a goose. That doesn't happen, nor does evolution claim it does.

Common descent claims precisely that.
Darwin's so called tree of life draws lines between different creatures to illustrate precisely that.

To use the term "new animal" shows a lack of understanding of evolution. No scientist would ever claim "new" animals evolved, only that an organism has gradually varied from previous ancestors enough to receive it's own classification.

Is its own classification a new classification?

Think now of the whole paradigm applying to the many nano machines doing the tasks needed in a cell. Darwin didn't have to think about that.
You and I in 2021 have to think about that.

For instance the double helix structure of a DNA molecule is assumed to also have gradually evolved into that structure. From some primitive initial form through each "new" variation until what we see today evolved.

Charles Darwin didn't have to think about that problem in the 19th century.
Those days are long gone now. Evolution theory has to think about that problem
not just origin of new species.

@sonship said
@vivify

This is where your post starts to fall apart. The changes from one generation to the next never produce a "new" animal. No animal is "new"; they're simply varied from their previous ancestors.

If one varies from its ancestor isn't there something new about the previously absent characteristic.

Macro evolution calls for eventual NEW kind o ...[text shortened]... ng gone now. Evolution theory has to think about that problem
not just origin of new species.

My post was about you using the term "new animal". If you want to discuss whether an inherited trait is new, that's something else. New traits don't necessarily mean a different organism.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2021/03/10/the-race-to-develop-plastic-eating-bacteria/?sh=5704b3d37406

In the link above, bacteria were discovered to have evolved the ability to eat plastic, an artificial, man-made substance. That's a completely new trait from previous generations of bacteria who didn't have this ability.

Your source in that video built it's entire case around the idea that "new" traits can't evolve. This is demonstrably false.

@vivify

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2021/03/10/the-race-to-develop-plastic-eating-bacteria/?sh=5704b3d37406

In the link above, bacteria were discovered to have evolved the ability to eat plastic, an artificial, man-made substance. That's a completely new trait from previous generations of bacteria who didn't have this ability.

Your source in that video built it's entire case around the idea that "new" traits can't evolve. This is demonstrably false.

In the lab organisms of the same kind with new traits have been produced.

Differences are bounded and limited in these experiments.
That is lack of experimental proof of a repeatable mechanism for macro evolution.

Nonbounded differences of the type needed to demo macro evolution
have never been observed in history. That is a lack of observational proof of macro
evolution.

The fossil record does not show the large amount of transitional examples that
we would expect the process would leave.
That is the lack of more observational proof of a history of macro evolution.

The mechanism proposed is proving even more improbable on a micro biological level, ie. the nano machines by the thousands in the factory of a cell.
That is additional more modern hurdles for the macro evolutionary paradigm to overcome.

I think your method of dealing with these hurdles is to inflate the gradualism aspect of the process hoping to conceal the big picture Darwinists propose.

This is like denying that a train track will take a train from New York to Chicago because, after all, inch by inch it is not happening.