I'm a lay person (a software developer), so let me give you what I've taken out
of Glenn's posting. (The rest of Juli's original post follows my message.)
Glenn Morton writes:
> Thus, the weaknesses in the traditional creationist probability
> argument is two fold. It assumes that one and only one sequence
> can perform a given function. And secondly, it assumes that only
> the most complex forms must be made at first. This ignores the
> potential of short sequences performing the same function."
For me, that is the summary of Glenn's argument.
One of the key arguments from probability against evolution is the probability
of any particular part of the molecular structure of an organism arising by
chance. Those who promote that argument look at the structure of, say, the
human genome and calculate the probability of that particular sequence arising
about by chance. Naturally, the probability against that sequence coming about
by chance is astronomical -- leading one to conclude that Darwinism is false.
This is an argument that is used both by lay people and practicing scientists
(see for example The Creation Hypothesis, J.P. Moreland et. al., IVP). You
could view it as a lottery: you buy one ticket and you have a one in 10 million
chance to win. Don't hold your breath.
What I take from Glenn's post is that there are some bad assumptions underlying
that argument. It isn't a worthless argument, but it isn't as strong as it
seems on the surface, for two reasons (which I've quoted above). I like to use
the analogy of a lottery ticket. You buy one ticket, the odds are 10 million to
1 you'll win. Glenn is saying that there is more than one ticket involved here.
First, the promoter of this version of the argument from probability against
evolution assumes that only one genetic sequence can accomplish a particular
function in a living organism. That, however, is not true and is known not to
be true. Some genetic variations can produce birth defects, but others don't
seem to matter (at least not in ways that we can understand). Thus different
genetic sequences may actually function equivalently in an organism. Glenn is
arguing that the odds drop substantially if more than one genetic sequence will
produce the same function in an organism and that, in fact, biology has
demonstrated that that is possible. This would be like saying that instead of
having one ticket for the lottery, you've purchased 10,000.
Secondly, the promoter of this argument performs their calculations on the most
complex of genetic structures. If I understand correctly, Glenn is arguing that
if you want to have a strong argument, you can't start with highly complex
organisms because that isn't what the evolutionist is promoting. Instead,
they're saying that simple organisms make minor adjustments to their genetic
structure over time to adapt to environmental factors. This has been
demonstrated by micro-evolution, which is acknowledged by all involved in the
debate. This is like saying that someone releases digits of the winning lottery
number and some of your 10,000 tickets adjust themselves to match the known
digits of the winning number (but not all of them are able to do so). By the ti
me the last digit is released, perhaps you'll have at least one ticket that was
able to adjust itself to match the winning number.
Adjusting the argument for these two assumptions, the actual probability
wouldn't be 1 to 10,000,000. Instead it would be a function of the original
number of tickets along with how adaptable those tickets were to further
environmental information (the release of new numbers). In other words, the
lottery analogy falls apart.
from probability against Darwinism, one must deal with and respond to Glenn's
points. At this point, I'm not sure how you could do that, though I must admit
that while I know God created humankind, I remain an agnostic on how he did so.
This does, however, suggest another line of argument against Darwinism (but not
evolution) -- why does the ticket adjust itself to its environment? This, I
believe, is why orthodox Christian scientists are able to with full integrity
embrace evolutionary development and yet vigorously deny the philosophical
naturalism underlying Darwinism.
FYI, I sent this to Glenn in a private post and he said it represented his
thoughts.
Regards,
Steve Anonsen
Date : 02/18/96 10:42 PM
To : GRMorton @ aol.com @ INTERNET
cc : asa @ calvin.edu @ INTERNET (bcc: CN=Steve Anonsen/O=GPS)
Subject : Re: Probability (Was Re: Ken Ham (help))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your lengthy posting, my dear brother in the Lord Jesus, is a good
example of why most of us "lay people" would rather hear from the folks
ASAers seem to discredit so freely.... and apparently with good reason.
I have a friend in Minnesota who is 'heavy' into math.
He spends hours and hours and hours making calculations to prove
some little point that matters nothing to me. I love him just
as much and respect him, even admiring him (sort of) even though his
'stuff' is totally useless to me. It seems important to him, you see,
and (hopefully) he's communicating to others like himself, but... I can't
help wondering: will it matter a hundred years from now? (My yardstick
for priorities.) Why do we enjoy the sounds of our own voices so much...
including myself?!
If you could translate your posting so it means something
to us non-scientists, your perspective would get quite a bit of
visibility thru this not-quite-convinced YECer. I'm looking for
quality, rational, understandable 'stuff' to prove the deficiencies
of Darwinian theory, notwithstanding the recent article in Science News
about transitional species (fossils) which takes away one of my favorite
arguments.
Juli Kuhl (social worker)
On Sun, 18 Feb 1996 GRMorton@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 96-02-18 10:18:37 EST, you write:
>
> >To my way of thinking, the biggest argument against Darwinian evolution >is
> the sheer mathematical improbability of it occurring, even given untold
> >billions of years. You don't even need to invoke Genesis to successfully
> >argue this point. Then, when you have cast doubt in the mind of the
> >Darwinian evolutionist, at that point you invoke a literal Genesis to make
> >your point about a Creator God. To counter Darwinian evolution >arguments
> with an OEC viewpoint might not have the impact that a YEC >argument might
> have, because you then have two opposing old earth >viewpoints battling with
> one another. The YEC arguments are thus more >dramatic and 'contrasty'.
> >
> >I guess the problem (or task) then becomes...how do OECs counter the
> >Darwinian evolutionary ideas just as dramatically, convincingly, and
> >forcefully...and as successfully, as have the YECs.
>
> I always get myself in trouble when I post here, but I could not let the
> probability issue pass by unchallenged. I used to believe the line that the
> random formation of a given protein was highly unlikely--that is, until I
> worked on the problem. We can not challenge Darwinian evolution based upon
> faulty logic and faulty math. Here is a post I put on another list and it
> shows exactly how one can produce by random means a sequence which can
> perform a specified task.
>
> glenn
> Post below
>
> ABSTRACT: The probability argument against the random finding of
> a given sequence is one of the main stays of the anti-
> evolutionary position. I have noted before that I view that
> argument as a weak one for a variety of reasons. In this note I
> will show that the finding of a functional sequence by a random
> search is quite likely on normal evolutionary time scales.
> Because of this, and other weaknesses in the traditional
> apologetic, Christianity needs to move to a more defendable
> apologetic.
>
>
> Duane Gish once wrote:
>
> "The highly specific biological activity of each protein is due
> to the precise way the amino acids are arranged, just as the
> information conveyed by this sentence is determined by the
> precise sequence of 190 letters found in it."~Duane Gish, "The
> Origin of Life," Proc. First Int. Conf. on Creationism,
> Pittsburgh: Creation Science Fellowship, 1986, p. 62
>
> There is a major problem with that sentence. This is not the
> only way to state what Gish wanted to state. For instance, he
> could have written "Biological activity is due to very specific
> orderings of amino acids as this sentences meaning is due to the
> 123 letter order."
>
> This is only a hint of how much variability there is in sequence
> space in order to convey the same message. There is an amazing
> flexibility in the language to perform the same task. I once
> calculated and listed over 330,000 ways to convey the
> information, "If you pick your nose; you get warts." These vary
> from relative pigeonish phrases like "pick nose get wart" to more
> complex statements, "If you put your digits into your nares, you
> will contract a hypertrophy of the corium." There are various
> orders of this statement. It can be reversed. "To contract a
> hypertrophy of the corium, place your digits into your nares."
> But you can substitute nasal openings, nostrils, nasal passages,
> for nares. You can get more gross and talk about what you pick
> and extract. :-) All of sequences were less than 80 in length
> and I only quit calculating because my imagination played out and
> I was getting bored.
>
> So the question is, if I wish to convey a certain message, how
> likely is it that I can find a sequence to perform a given
> function? There is a way to randomly produce a useful sequence
> which is not all that improbable.
>
> Let's use a less gross example than the nose picking one above.
> Lets find a functional sequence to answer the question your wife
> asked you when you were first married. "What do you want for
> breakfast?" (and you thought I was going to say something else.
> tsk tsk.) There are lots of ways to answer this question. What
> we will do is choose a 70 unit long sequence of 20 letters,
> ruling out the use of z,q,x,k,v and j. Thus, we have in this 70
> unit long sequence 1.18 x 10^91 different possible combinations.
> Normally the anti-evolutionists say, like Gish, that the
> likelihood of finding just the correct sequence is too unlikely
> to occur. This is usually based upon the idea that one and only
> one sequence will perform the task. This is untrue as we have
> seen.
> Even finding 330,000 ways to say I want eggs, does not solve the
> problem. 330,000 ways to say I want eggs out of 1 x 10^78 is
> still too improbable for one to consider realistically.
>
> In order to solve the problem we need one other factor. What is
> the shortest sequence which performs the function? The shortest
> I can think of is simply "eggs". But this is not a full sentence
> and would be too brusque for your bride. So lets say the
> shortest sentence is "I eat eggs" without the spaces this is a 8
> letter sequence.
>
> What I noticed was that with a 2 unit long sequence, i.e., in a
> 2-d phase space, the sequence ab occurs at only one point out of
> the 26 x 26 points in a 26 character set. That is 1/676=.0014. If
> you embed this 2d space into a third (e.g. using a 3 unit long
> sequence), there are then 52 permutations with the sequence ab.
> There are 26 sequences *ab and 26 sequences ab* for a total of 52
> sequences in the phase space.[The asterisk is a wild-card]
> Thus the odds of finding a sequence with ab is 52/17576=.0029, a
> considerable improvement in the odds of finding ab. Embedding the 2d sequence
> in a 4d space requires **ab,*ab*,ab** be the sequences desired.(here * is
> wildcard standing in for any letter) .
> There are 3 x 26^2 in the 4d sequence and thus the odds are .0044
> of finding an ab. Each subsequent embedding raises the odds of
> finding a particular short sequence.
> It would appear that the equation ought to look something like:
>
> prob=(N-n+1)(L^(N-n)/L^N
>
> where N is the number of dimensions in the larger phase space, n
> is the number of dimensions in the smaller phase space and L is
> the number of characters which can be selected. This equation
> ignores those sequences which have multiple copies of the desired
> embedded sequence, but they are a small quantity by comparison
> and can be safely ignored.
>
> Thus in the search of a 70-d space for a 8-unit sequence ("I eat
> eggs"), should yield
>
> prob =(70-8+1)(20^(62))/(20^70)=2.4 x 10^-9
>
>
> This is the probability that you will randomly make a 70 unit
> long sequence which contains the string "ieateggs" somewhere in
> it. But one can object that this embedding of the wanted string
> in another one makes it unlikely to be useful. After all, the
> string
>
> "fieuoindhgeosyhdbflgdsyfgshsdfgdfosuieateggsqcrpflacyebfmcpdusmw
> gcnmle"
>
> does not seem to convey much information. But, as is often noted
> in discussions of the origin of protein or DNA sequences, once
> formed the sequence is likely to be cut randomly. So what are
> the odds that a sequence with "ieateggs" will be cut twice, at
> just the correct location? If we consider that a sequence that
> is not cut is equivalent to cutting it past the terminal
> character of the sequence, there are 71 places you can cut the
> sequence. Thus for the above sequence, randomly cut, there is a
> 1/(71*71)= 1/5041 chance of cutting it in such a fashion that the
> "iwanteggs" statement is extracted. Thus the total probability
> of finding a useful sequence in the 70 unit long sequence is 4.76
> x 10^-13.
>
> How likely are we to find this useful sequence? If we were to
> assign amino acids to the letters, and write this sequence in
> proteins, and then create a vat with 10^14 70-amino acid
> proteins, (This is an average sized vat produced in university
> laboratories today.) you would most likely find 10 of the
> "ieateggs" sequence in the first vat.
>
> This is not all. The next shortest useful sequence to answer
> your bride's question is "I want eggs" This is a nine character
> sequence The odds of finding and cutting out this sequence
> in a 70-unit long sequence is 2.40 x 10^-14. In your first
> vat of proteins there is a high probability that one "iwanteggs"
> will be found. But there is also the phrase "I like eggs"
> which is also 9 and has a probability of 2.40 x 10^-14 of being
> in the vat after each sequence is cut twice. There is also,
> "I need eggs", "I wish eggs" and "I have eggs".
>
> If we look for 10-sequence solutions, we have "I covet eggs", I
> crave eggs", "I fancy eggs", "I favor eggs" Each of these has a
> probability approximately 10^-15. You would be likely to find
> one of these in the first 10 vats.
>
> In addition to these, if we go to an 11-length solution, we have
> phrases like "I ingest eggs" "I devour eggs", "I fancy eggs", "I
> gobble eggs". These have a likelihood of 10^-16.
>
> This can go on and on. Within the 70-d space there are hundreds
> of thousands of ways of saying that you want eggs for breakfast.
>
> One question which can be addressed here is how can a short
> useable sequence become longer. Well, if you come down to
> breakfast and say brusquely to your bride, that "I eat eggs", she
> might cook them for a few days but eventually she will demand a
> politer response, like "Dear, I eat eggs". Small additions from
> one useable form to another due to selection pressure caused by
> your hunger pangs when your bride doesn't fix your breakfast, can
> eventually lead you to say, "My beautiful wife, I am most
> desirous of eating two eggs this morning" Obviously this
> sequence has a greater functionality than simply, "I eat eggs".
> But today this greater functionality is what we observe and expect to be
> produced in the first attempt.
>
> Do proteins act in the same fashion as the language above? Yes.
> Gerald Joyce is one of the leaders in the field of directed
> evolution. He noted that about 1 in a million of his sequences are capable
> of performing the function he was looking for. This is a far cry from the 1
> chance in 10^200 normally cited by antievolutionists.
> I would point you to Discover, May 1994, "Speeding
> Through Evolution,", and to Gerald E. Joyce, "Directed
> Evolution," Scientific American, Dec. 1992, pp.somewhere around
> p. 94,95 or Beaudry and Joyce, Science, 257:637-638, 1992.
>
> Sean Eddy of the Washington University School of Medicine
> recently wrote on Talk Origins,( message
> <EDDY.95Aug17084136@wol.wustl.edu>) that RNA sequence space is
> teeming with interesting functionalities. All based upon Joyce's
> work.
>
> Thus, the weaknesses in the traditional creationist probability
> argument is two fold. It assumes that one and only one sequence
> can perform a given function. And secondly, it assumes that only
> the most complex forms must be made at first. This ignores the
> potential of short sequences performing the same function."
>
> When one adds this weakness to the other weaknesses mentioned
> over the past few weeks the weakness of our apologetical approach
> becomes obvious. The problems are: 1) the amount of genetic
> variability in humans which requires an ancient humanity in order
> to fit the Biblical data. 2) The inability for young-earth
> creationists to account within their time frame for how the caves
> could be formed in which fossil man lived. 3) The fact that
> fossil man apparently built religious altars of various forms
> which is unaccounted for by those defending a recent origin of
> Adam. 4) The inability of old earth creationists to point to a
> place and a set of rocks to explain how the flood occurred and
> how it matches the Biblical account (how could Noah float for a
> year and land anywhere near mountains?). 5) Whether one accepts
> the fossils we discussed in June and July as truly transitional
> or not, is less important to the apologetical case than what
> those fossils appear like. If they have the appearance of being
> transitional forms, all our pleading that these are really NOT
> transitional forms will fall on deaf ears.
>
> The young earth creationists position Christianity in opposition
> to almost every piece of observational data science collects,
> from astronomy, biology, geology, paleontology, physics and
> anthropology. The PC and TE positions, with a recent creation of
> man, are much better, but they place christianity in opposition
> to certain biomolecular data(MHC and other allelic diversity) and
> anthropological data (the nature of fossil man) as noted above.
>
> It is very obvious that the positions we are defending
> apologetically, are not very secure.
>
> The question those interested in Christian apologetics and the
> relation between science and the early chapters of Genesis should
> ask themselves, is whether the purpose of the Christian apologist
> is to explain the observational data in a Biblical framework or
> to explain the data away. These are two very different
> approaches. But if the probability argument against evolution is
> as weak as I showed above, Christianity had best find a better
> way to handle the area of Science and the Bible.
>
> glenn
> 16075 Longvista Dr.
> Dallas, Texas 75248
>