Re: Second law of Thermodynamics

Moorad Alexanian (alexanian@UNCWIL.EDU)
Fri, 21 Nov 1997 15:24:59 -0500 (EST)

At 09:54 PM 11/20/97 -0600, Glenn Morton wrote:
>At 12:04 PM 11/20/97, Moorad Alexanian wrote:
>
>>I am curious Glenn. If we go through those 10^137 possible permutations at
>>the rate of one a second, it will take 10^130 years. Suppose we have 10^100
>>such molecules, it would still take 10^30 years. Do these numbers much
>>larger than the age of the universe bother you? I recall reading somewhere
>>that the astronomer Fred Hoyle believed that such large magnitude numbers
>>would rule out randomness as a possible mechanism for change.
>
>Moorad,
>
>You don't have to attack the problem in the way that creationists want it
>attacked. Selection is a powerful search algorithm. The note below is from
>something I posted a long time ago. Note the probability of Joyce's ribozyme
>that he is making. It is vastly more unlikely to find a RNA molecule with a
>given functionality in this case than in the cytochrome c example.

I am still puzzled. Is there any guide in the search? If so, what determines
or provides that guiding mechanism?

Moorad