It has been a long time. I hope you are doing well.
At 03:58 PM 1/5/98 -0500, Dr. Fred Phelps wrote:
> I have not been on the list recently so forgive me if this has already
>been discussed. I know Glenn Morton has written something on the problem
>of the origin of life by chance using the anaolgy of the alphabet and the
>English language as a test of what is functional (meaningful or
>biologically "fit" showing that the odds are not insurmountable.
That was a post that I did on another list. I had collected 330,000 ways of
saying "If I pick my nose I get warts." I only quit collecting because I got
bored. If you then include as functional sequences like
If I pick me nose I git worts
Eef I pik my noz I git wortz
as being capable of communicating the information, then the number of
functional (but impurrfect) sentences increases dramatically. (See you
understood perfectly well the misspelled word 'impurrfect' That imperfect
sequence of letters performed the task of communicating what I meant.)
I know
>that Yockey has written a long and expensive book, presumably on the
>probability of the information content of a protein being generated by
>known physical laws and chance. I have heard that he concludes that the
>probability is very low and the chance theory inadequate. Can someone give
>an accurate summary of his work and claims and how it affects the
>probability argument against the non-supernatural origin of life?
The usual arguement against probability rests upon the assumption that one
and only 1 sequence will perform a given function. Thus for cytochrome c
with 100 amino acids or so, there are around 10^137 different sequences
possible. Thus the usual anti-evoutionist claim is that the odds against
formation of a useful cytochrome is 10^-137. Yockey calculates that there
are 10^93 different functional permutations which will perform the function
of c. This is based upon a substitution of hydrophilic for hydrophilic amino
acid and hydrophobic for hydrophobic. Thus he calculates the odds against
the formation of a useful cytochrome as 10^93/10^137 or 10^-44, which is a
considerable reduction in probability albeit it is still unlikely.
Yockey's assumption is that the only functional sequences are those in which
each cytochrome location is filled by its representative type of amino acid.
This is
location 1 - location 2- location 3---location 4-
hydrophobic- hydrophobic- hydrophilic-whatever
The question I asked Yockey personally was, if you define this pattern of
protein as one family of solutions to the cytochrome c functionality whether
another FAMILY, another pattern of hydrophobics hydrophilics etc will
perform the function. If there are 10^30 different families, then you would
further reduce the probability against finding a useful functional molecule
by chance to 10^-14. This is in the range of what is found experimentally
by making random biopolymers. (see Directed Evolution, by Gerald Joyce,
Scientific American Dec. 1993? (or 1992)
Yockey didn't answer.
glenn
Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man
and
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm