Newsweek Article

[Zobair]

well...really here is not the place to discuss specific stuff like that...In any case...I have lost the energy or the motivation!

Anyways, here is a site with the other side of the view that you might find interesting too, if you have the time.

refutation of evolution

[Orpheus]

Damn pompous, I didn't know you were that interesting! I usually snore reading your posts (ok that was a not funny joke)!

The major basis of evolutionary evidence is that of fossil found in various parts of the world with massive time-gaps in between e.g. Half-fish half-reptile looking creatures have been used as evidence for a fish evolving into a reptile.

The best evidence I found for evolution is a bengali friend of mine. If you see him you would instantly figure out that Darwin knew what he was talking about! My friend is a taller (not a hunchback) APE with reduced hair.

If you guys are still not convinced, then here is another example.

NBA star Shaqil Oneil! Now if you don't belive that We came from monkeys after watching him... then you are stupid! Shala ekta gorilla! Kothao bole gorrilar moto..

Bob: "Was fatigue a problem for you in the 4th quarter after playing 3 straight without being benched?"
Shaq: "Weh, No ah ah Tha .. so Fan ah uh Momntum" (not a typo)

[Tehsin]

Orpheaus wrote

================
If you are saying that all religion have same fundamentals and that believers find GOD in different names, nature, things etc... then your argument is plausible and I would emphasize that you are very open-minded.
============

I'd like to think of myself as open minded.

But how can you say this?

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But NO - Someone, thousands of years ago figured out - he can dream a little dream and become a messiah of the God. Few years later, another shmuck got in the action. Wish we could go back in time, bring those TARDS here and lynch the life out of them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


=====================
I didn't expect comments like that from YOU! You can believe in whatever you want but to blatantly impugning the integrity of all the prophets that most portion of the world believe in is just too offensive. If I were to believe you, I would also have to believe in the notion that almost all of the world is filled with idiots and you are one of the selected few to see things straight, which is so conspicuous!
=================

The world is filled with lots of idiots. If they are not idiots, they are weak or too strong (or don't care at all) and would go with the flow as it suits them.

Here's another - My background makes me believe that the prophets were real. If my prophets were real, then the other prophets were simply frauds or just misread the texts - the HUMAN error dealt a huge blow to the one religion and divided it into more.

Why do I think there is one god. Well, there's either one or none (uh oh). Then again, how would I know ? How would ANYONE know ?
The reasoning behind one god - if there were more, wouldn't we see them clash all the time. You can say that even if they do clash, us puny humans have no ways to tell.
The reasoning behind NO god - just look around you. Gotta be a pretty Messed (I wanted to use the other one) up god to let all evil happen around us. pretty evil.

Oh wait, what if there was never any god but just evil ? khek khek khek khek khek.

[Nasif]

Evolution is one of the most unscientific theory ever put forth by scientists. Mostly driven by propaganda than anything else.

Breifly why evolution is crackpot idea:

1. In Darwins day cell was thought to be a tiny dot without much to do. And life was thought to come by itself (worms and maggots coming out of a self contained rotten piece of meat etc). If Darwin knew about the complexities of a cell, he would have never proposed his bull crap theory.

2. A cell cannot be created. Those who think that Stanley's experiment to create amino acid (building block of cell) was a success needs to re-read the experiment procedure. Scientists now know that a cell cannot be created and neither can it come into existance by itself. Research to create cell has stopped for a long time (no one even tries, cause its IMPOSSIBLE). There is not a even a chance in 1 in billion trillion to create even one part of a cell (say mitocondrea), let alone a whole cell itself. Those who think a cell can come into existance by itslef needs to take basic college leve. Probability and Statistics class!

3. Why does all animal species appear all of a sudden in Cambrian period? "The beginning of the Cambrian period, some 545 million years ago, saw the sudden appearance in the fossil record of almost all the main types of animals (phyla) that still dominate the biota today". (from Science). What happened to gradual evolution?

4. We are still waiting for at least a fossil of an intermediate species (let alone an alive one). Why would natural selection destroy an evolved and better fit intermediate species while un-evolved one is still around us (take a look atl the chimps).

5. Darwin himself was confused about his theory and wrote about these in a chapter called "Difficulites in Theory". Where he admits that he cannot explain how an eye can evolve.

If you really want to know why evolution theory is nothing but all bull crap then please read this book completely:

Evoution Deciet by Harun Yahya
The above file is a ZIP file containing the PDF format book. You can visit the writer's site at http://www.harunyahya.com all his books are free to download.

Every species from tiny DNA of a virus to complex human is created by God Alone.

Nasif

PS. Don't equate adaptation to evolution. Staying out of sun and getting a light skin tone is not an evolution.

[Arnab]

Nasif, check out talkorigins.org.

Better yet, check out this article:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/

[Edited on 4-8-2003 by Arnab]

[Nasif]

I was aware of these arguments. It is sad that every modern evolution logic must end with mutation.

According to this view, GLO gene copies in the human and guinea pig lineages were inactivated by mutations.

Wow what a coincidetal mutation! Only deactivated GLO gene sequence. Afterall scientist all over the world trying every possible way for last 30 years or so to mutate a successful fruit-fly, with results that are nothing short of freak of nature.

His whole argument rests on the idea of "successful" positive mutation (meaning mutated living being survies and passes on the genetic traits). Mutation by default can never be successful because by mutating, a DNA does NOT aquire new genetic information rather it looses it (X-Men is only good for cartoons and movies). DNA is a program sequence much like a computer program. For a computer to run its program, all the bits have to be ordered correctly. One incorrect bit sequence can render the program useless.

DNA is program sequence of life itself. Its a software, information storage system, encoder and a decoder. To serve its complete purpose it must always be complete. An incomplete DNA sequence (or gene seqnece) cannot re-organize itself to a complete one. Therefore a DNA cannot evolve, because that would require it to be self concious. A selfconsious C, N, O and H molecules! Not possible. If we argue that a comlex moleclue like DNA can come to being by chance then its nothing short of good laugh!

The probability of an average protein molecule made up of 500 amino acids being arranged in the correct quantity and sequence in addition to the probability of all of the amino acids it contains being only left-handed and being combined with only peptide bonds is "1" over 10^950 (1 followed by 950 zeros).
The Molecular Impasse of Evolution

If we run a computer and simluate every possible older generation operation systems on it for eternity, it will never create a Windows XP by itself. There has to be a programmer who writes the software to serve a purpose. Similarly, if we run the earth the for eons, a single DNA chain will not come into being.

Now lets the bake the nodles even harder. Which came first the cell or the DNA? This question is not supposed to be trivia like egg and chicken situation (although its same principle). A cell cannot come into being without the DNA sequence, and a DNA sequence cannot come into being without a cell! Only way for the evolutionists to solve this situation is by saying that, "C, N, H and O said lets get together and make amino acid and then make a cell with complete DNA chain." See the logic!

If we cannot prove that a cell evolved by itself then there is no argument for evolution. All other arguments falls flat on ground. Because at the heart of every life there is a cell and the DNA chain.

Its just the tip of the iceberg. And lets not start the plant evolution.

[Arnab]

The probability of an average protein molecule made up of 500 amino acids being arranged in the correct quantity and sequence in addition to the probability of all of the amino acids it contains being only left-handed and being combined with only peptide bonds is "1" over 10^950 (1 followed by 950 zeros).
The Molecular Impasse of Evolution

Talkorigins is SO handy in answering this type of probability related questions.

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


Excerpt:


Here is a experiment you can do yourself: take a coin, flip it four times, write down the results, and then do it again. How many times would you think you had to repeat this procedure (trial) before you get 4 heads in a row?

Now the probability of 4 heads in a row is is (1/2)^4 or 1 chance in 16: do we have to do 16 trials to get 4 heads (HHHH)? No, in successive experiments I got 11, 10, 6, 16, 1, 5, and 3 trials before HHHH turned up. The figure 1 in 16 (or 1 in a million or 1 in 10^40) gives the likelihood of an event in a given trial, but doesn't say where it will occur in a series. You can flip HHHH on your very first trial (I did). Even at 1 chance in 4.29 x 10^40, a self-replicator could have turned up surprisingly early. But there is more.

1 chance in 4.29 x 10^40 is still orgulously, gobsmackingly unlikely; it's hard to cope with this number. Even with the argument above (you could get it on your very first trial) most people would say "surely it would still take more time than the Earth existed to make this replicator by random methods". Not really; in the above examples we were examining sequential trials, as if there was only one protein/DNA/proto-replicator being assembled per trial. In fact there would be billions of simultaneous trials as the billions of building block molecules interacted in the oceans, or on the thousands of kilometers of shorelines that could provide catalytic surfaces or templates

Let's go back to our example with the coins. Say it takes a minute to toss the coins 4 times; to generate HHHH would take on average 8 minutes. Now get 16 friends, each with a coin, to all flip the coin simultaneously 4 times; the average time to generate HHHH is now 1 minute. Now try to flip 6 heads in a row; this has a probability of (1/2)^6 or 1 in 64. This would take half an hour on average, but go out and recruit 64 people, and you can flip it in a minute. If you want to flip a sequence with a chance of 1 in a billion, just recruit the population of China to flip coins for you, you will have that sequence in no time flat.

.............


So, if on our prebiotic earth we have a billion peptides growing simultaneously, that reduces the time taken to generate our replicator significantly.

Okay, you are looking at that number again, 1 chance in 4.29 x 10^40, that's a big number, and although a billion starting molecules is a lot of molecules, could we ever get enough molecules to randomly assemble our first replicator in under half a billion years?

Yes, one kilogram of the amino acid arginine has 2.85 x 10^24 molecules in it (that's well over a billion billion); a tonne of arginine has 2.85 x 10^27 molecules. If you took a semi-trailer load of each amino acid and dumped it into a medium size lake, you would have enough molecules to generate our particular replicator in a few tens of years, given that you can make 55 amino acid long proteins in 1 to 2 weeks.

So how does this shape up with the prebiotic Earth? On the early Earth it is likely that the ocean had a volume of 1 x 10^24 litres. Given an amino acid concentration of 1 x 10^-6 M (a moderately dilute soup, see Chyba and Sagan 1992 [23]), then there are roughly 1 x 10^50 potential starting chains, so that a fair number of efficent peptide ligases (about 1 x 10^31) could be produced in a under a year, let alone a million years. The synthesis of primitive self-replicators could happen relatively rapidly, even given a probability of 1 chance in 4.29 x 10^40 (and remember, our replicator could be synthesized on the very first trial).

Assume that it takes a week to generate a sequence. Then the Ghadiri ligase could be generated in one week, and any cytochrome C sequence could be generated in a bit over a million years (along with about half of all possible 101 peptide sequences, a large proportion of which will be functional proteins of some sort).

Although I have used the Ghadiri ligase as an example, as I mentioned above the same calculations can be performed for the SunY self replicator, or the Ekland RNA polymerase. I leave this as an exercise for the reader, but the general conclusion (you can make scads of the things in a short time) is the same for these oligonucleotides.

----------------


Arnab: By the way, EVOLUTION is not the discipline that deals with the emergence of life(self-replicating molecule) from non-living matters. That discipline is called ABIOGENESIS.

[Edited on 4-8-2003 by Arnab]

[Nasif]

Arnab you gotta be kidding me bhai

You can flip HHHH on your very first trial (I did). Even at 1 chance in 4.29 x 10^40, a self-replicator could have turned up surprisingly early.

Just shows how un-scientific the approach of the article is. To convince the reader writer has to draw similarities with out of this world comparision of 1/16 to 1/billion-trillion(many times over)

If universe ran with this "fantasy" logic then all of our wishes would have come true and you could have gone to work today riding an unicorn.

1 chance in 4.29 x 10^40 is still orgulously, gobsmackingly unlikely

What said the probability of making a protein at random is 1 in 4.29x10^40? An average protein with around 500 left-handed amino acid (only left handed amino acid forms protien) combined with only peptide bond is 1 in 10^950. Visit the link given before to study complete detail of this probablity calculation.

Not really; in the above examples we were examining sequential trials, as if there was only one protein/DNA/proto-replicator being assembled per trial. In fact there would be billions of simultaneous trials as the billions of building block molecules interacted in the oceans, or on the thousands of kilometers of shorelines that could provide catalytic surfaces or templates

What happened to this successful replicator generation process? Was it successful for only one situation? Then it would be hard to speculate origin of plant cell (with cloroplast)! If it was successful many times then why all life on earth is of similar structure (DNA, chemical compunds, chemical composition etc)? Catch 22!

Given an amino acid concentration of 1 x 10^-6 M (a moderately dilute soup, see Chyba and Sagan 1992 [23]),

And how did amino acid come into being at the first place? And please don't quote Stanly's experiment of creating amino acid. Also, writer fails to mention that only left handed amino acid can form protein. All life on this earth only has left handed amino acid. Right handed amino acid is useless piece of junk.

Yes, one kilogram of the amino acid arginine has 2.85 x 10^24 molecules in it (that's well over a billion billion); a tonne of arginine has 2.85 x 10^27 molecules. If you took a semi-trailer load of each amino acid and dumped it into a medium size lake, you would have enough molecules to generate our particular replicator in a few tens of years, given that you can make 55 amino acid long proteins in 1 to 2 weeks.

Notice how un-scientific remark it is! He is stating the above as if it is a proven FACT. Whereas, the reality is that its just his hypothesis which borders on imaginative fiction. I wonder why no one tries the above experiment! One also wonders why all the micro-biologist in the world gave up effort to create any element of a cell.

My final question in the previous post was not about the probablity. Rather the question was chicken and egg question. Let me re-pharse it (quoted from Evolution Deciete):

One of the basic reasons why the theory of evolution cannot explain how the cell came into existence is the "irreducible complexity" in it. A living cell maintains itself with the harmonious co-operation of many organelles. If only one of these organelles fails to function, the cell cannot remain alive. The cell does not have the chance to wait for unconscious mechanisms like natural selection or mutation to permit it to develop. Thus, the first cell on earth was necessarily a complete cell possessing all the required organelles and functions, and this definitely means that this cell had to have been created.

I know evolution doesn't deal with origin of life (rather it deals origin of species). But you cannot talk one leaving the other. If you talk about chicken then you have to start with the egg. Anything else is just an escape from the truth.


Nasif Akand



PS: things to ponder about....

Formation of Carbon (building block of life)

Now comes the interesting story of that element of life, carbon. Helium is a very stable element. It is so stable that for a while physicists thought that it was a fundamental particle, and it was named the alpha particle. Carbon has a mass number 12, and consists of three helium atoms stuck together in a stable configuration. Unfortunately, two helium atoms, which make beryllium, are very much unstable. The stuff sticks around for less that 10^–16 of a second before disintegrating. It takes an additional neutron to make stable beryllium-9. Therein lies our problem. A collision of stable beryllium-9 with helium-4 will not add up to carbon-12. The unstable beryllium-8 does not last long enough to permit any reasonable level of carbon formation by interaction with helium. Finally, the odds of three helium atoms hitting each other simultaneously in just the right way to stick together as carbon is out of sight. It looks like there isn't any way to make carbon. And as noted, without carbon there is no life. Now, it is important to understand that without carbon there is still a universe. It does not even look very different from what we have, on a superficial level. The basic fuel for stars is here, and the stars burn very nicely. The only important difference is that we are not around to enjoy it. But we know that we are, in fact, around. And we know that there is lots of carbon around. So where did it come from?

In 1954, Fred Hoyle of Cambridge proposed a solution. He suggested that there is a resonance between helium-4, beryllium-8 and carbon-12. A resonance describes an effect where one gets a big result from a relatively small effort. Pluck a string in a certain way and you get a big sound for a small pull; do it some other way and it goes flat. Taking into account the mass-energy of each nucleus, and the calculated kinetic energy of the moving particles based on the temperature in the star, Hoyle predicted a hitherto unsuspected energy level, at 7.82 million electron volts, in the carbon-12 nucleus that would cause a resonance for the combined energies of the three elements. This resonance causes three helium-4 particles to stay together just a bit longer than usual, and that is long enough for these to rearrange themselves into the compact and stable configuration of carbon-12. The prediction was tested in the laboratory and found to be correct. The question to ask is, what is it in the basic laws of the universe that requires this resonance, involving three elements and the conditions inside a star, to be there? Why not have a universe without carbon? We do not know the answer.

Above quoted from Heavenly Time machine.

Carbon is there because God created it. Cell is there because God created it.

[Edited on 5-8-2003 by nasif]

[Zobair]

Hear! Hear! Mashallah

[Arnab]

Meh...I am seriously thinking if I should devote more time on this. Nasif, bhai,

1. Did you read the article?

2. I thought the coin analogy was a great one. You have taken basic probability courses in college, haven't you?

3. Let's just focus on one problem/confusion at a time. Right now, I am willing to discuss the validity of replicators rising from non-living matters in the premordial soup given the infinitesimal probability for ONE such event happening.

Let me clarify in VERY SIMPLISTIC WORDS what the author was trying to say.

Let's take your probability value at the range of 10^950 or whatever. We have half a billion years of time to produce a replicator or whatever. Now, in every second of the premordial earth, say in a liter, only one liter, volume of the chemical soup, billions of reactions are taking place. But the premordial soups entire volume is not one liters, it's an OCEAN! so there are billions of liters of chemical soup and in each liter there are billions of reactions taking place every second. But this didn't happen for one second. It was happening for millions of years, a time frame which contained gadzillions of seconds. Do you see the humongous number of reactions going on simultaneously for an obscene amount of time? And the emergence of the replicator out of these billions of billions of gadzillions of reactions ONLY had to happen once, then it could replicate.

Do you know what your chances are of winning the first prize in America's biggest lottery? 1 in several millions right? But still, even though the chances are so low, SOMEBODY actually wins the lottery, isn't that true? Do you see what I am saying?

[Nasif]

Arnab you cant do bachelors in engineering without prob and stats.

And yes, I understood the logic that the writer was putting forth. And no it does not hold because there is no premordial soup of amino acid (origins of amino acide?). Thats it. No chance to of anything happening. You forgot one little difference between winning the lottery by someone and cell evolution. Which is, lottery numbers have a FINITE set (say 1 to 54 ), whereas natural phenomenons are in INFINITE set. I can gurantee you this that no one in this world will even win a single lottery that has infinite set.

You are still evading the very basic question that I put forth

In any event here is another anecdote, gotta love'em

One day, a lump of clay, pressed between the rocks in a barren land, becomes wet after it rains. The wet clay dries and hardens when the sun rises, and takes on a stiff, resistant form. Afterwards, these rocks, which also served as a mould, are somehow smashed into pieces, and then a neat, well shaped, and strong brick appears. This brick waits under the same natural conditions for years for a similar brick to be formed. This goes on until hundreds and thousands of the same bricks have been formed in the same place. However, by chance, none of the bricks that were previously formed are damaged. Although exposed to storm, rain, wind, scorching sun, and freezing cold for thousands of years, the bricks do not crack, break up, or get dragged away, but wait there in the same place with the same determination for other bricks to form.

When the number of bricks is adequate, they erect a building by being arranged sideways and on top of each other, having been randomly dragged along by the effects of natural conditions such as winds, storms, or tornadoes. Meanwhile, materials such as cement or soil mixtures form under "natural conditions", with perfect timing, and creep between the bricks to clamp them to each other. While all this is happening, iron ore under the ground is shaped under "natural conditions" and lays the foundations of a building that is to be formed with these bricks. At the end of this process, a complete building rises with all its materials, carpentry, and installations intact.

[Arnab]

Hmm..I still don't know if you got it or not. because if you did, you wouldn't be talking about "infinity." Earlier, you said before it wasn't infinity, it's 10^950(which is also a very improbable number btw, but that's another story) or something. Make up your mind. Be congruent. And spare me the anecdotes for now. Let's stick to this one topic first. We have plenty of time to come back to other topics.



[Edited on 5-8-2003 by Arnab]

[Nasif]

Arnab trust me, I do get it. Trillions of molecules can line up perfectly to produce replicator in the very first chance. And probability gets increased because everywhere in the soup billions of molecules can combine billions of way in split seconds. Even so where did the amino acid come from to begin with?

Not to mention that the very postulate that billions of the molecules trying independently of one another increases the chance of creating a replicator is completely against laws of probability. Buying lottery for 10 weeks straight and loosing won't increase your chance of winning in 11th week. Because each lottery is independent of one another and your loosing doesn't increase your chance of your winning.

Whole theory rests on this flimsy string. Its so flimsy that I don't see the string.

You still didn't answer the question.

I would suggest you read the Evolution Deciet. Not to make you a believer in creation but just to show that there might be alternate solutions that one can certainly delve into. If nothing else you will get to know creationists' views a whole lot better.

Nasif



[Edited on 7-8-2003 by nasif]

[Ockey]

I think I might have opened up a pandora's box on the topic of religion. For a while we had a discussion going but now it's turning to arguments for and against evolution and religion and frankly I am losing interest in the topic all togather.

The point I was trying to make with my initial post is that in a truely democratic state freedom of speech should prevail even if that speech that is perceived to be blasphemous or demeaning. And it's not just because in this day and age it's useless to supress any speech because of the advent of internet. I feel if we ban any and all other differing school of thoughts we run into the danger of creating a puritanical version of a religion where everything that is interpreted by the religious leaders is the rule of law and perceived as the actual will of God. The classic example is the Wahabi teachings in the Middle East. In certain countries in the reagion (not mentioning names) hatred for the people of other religion and even other sects of Islam is indoctrinated not only in the Madrasas (religious school) but the overall education system itself. This coupled with the overall xenophobic attitudes of the inhabitants creates an ideal breading ground for deciples who are taught to correct all the wrong in the world and bring back the glory days! To see the latest result click on the link below:

Bombing in Jakarta

Some may argue that if we are to believe that Islam is the divine religion, we have a duty to protect it (as It asks us to do). My answer to them to what is this supposed threat? Is the threat seen by the rational minds of our society or the "trusted" religious leaders. And what lengths are you willing to go to protect your religion? Does it include killing innocent people?

The sentiment that is shared by Islamic extremists about the people from the West is the same sentiment that I hear so often from the underprivileged in the US about white people: they are all rich, corrupt and racist. My question to them is: have you met all the white people in the US?

[Arnab]

Even so where did the amino acid come from to begin with?

Didn't Stanley Miller spontaneously produce amino acids within a week in the lab? If he can produce them in the lab in a week, then why is it not possible to produce amino acids in primordial earth? Got any good reasons?

[Arnab]

Not to mention that the very postulate that billions of the molecules trying independently of one another increases the chance of creating a replicator is completely against laws of probability. Buying lottery for 10 weeks straight and loosing won't increase your chance of winning in 11th week. Because each lottery is independent of one another and your loosing doesn't increase your chance of your winning.

It won't increase my chance. But if I keep buying tickets for lotteries every week for a million years, I WILL BE A WINNER IN AT LEAST ONE OF THOSE WEEKS. Now, do we have enough time to do the same thing with producing replicators? Yes. Using the analogy of lottery, there are billions of such lotteries being conducted every second and these lotteries are going on for millions of years. Don't you think there has to be AT LEAST ONE OR TWO INCIDENTS when the reaction will hit the jackpot over the course of gadzillions of lotteries? And it just takes ONCE to do this.



PS. Ockey, I apologise for taking part in this thread hijacking. I totally agree with what you said in your last post, BTW.


[Edited on 5-8-2003 by Arnab]

[Nasif]

Didn't Stanley Miller spontaneously produce amino acids within a
week in the lab?

Now I know that you didn't read any of my posts completely. If you read you
wouldn't have mentioned Miller's experiment. Please study why Miller's experiment cannot be used as a Scientific proof or argument for self genesis of amino acid.

Four
Facts That Invalidate Miller's Experiment
or
Miller and other stuff

Maggots, Mice, and…Stanley Miller

What does Miller himself say?
“It must be admitted from the beginning that we do not know how life began. It is generally believed that a variety of processes led to the formation of simple organic compounds on the primitive earth. These compounds combined together to give more and more complex structures until one was formed that could be called living. No one should be satisfied with an explanation as general as this.”
Stanley Miller


For Ockey:
Sorry for taking up the space to talk about evolution. I agree 100% with freedom of speech. Doesn't matter if it goes against political or normal social ideology. One must hear it out and make their own mind.

Acutally I started the discussion just to expose the fallacy of evolution. Nothing more.

[Arnab]

I will come back to the amino acid topic later, after I read the articles Nasif provided.

One LAST article on this probablity question:

The article is exremely resourceful in the sense that it actually chronologically describes the history of probability calculations by creationists regarding abiogenesis and points out the flaws. It's pretty big. So take time to read.


Are the Odds Against the Origin of Life Too Great to Accept?




[Edited on 6-8-2003 by Arnab]

[Edited on 6-8-2003 by Arnab]

[Orpheus]

First I would like to say that this is a very interesting debate with Nasif leading by one run (just pissing off Arnab ). Although I must say that most of the links to my Orgo text book isn’t interesting at all. Since Ockey wants to discuss freedom of speech, I request our active moderators to split the topic somewhere in the first page. No need to apologize for going “Off topic”. Now Nasif bhai, I didn’t think you were just trying to expose the fallacy of Evolution. I got the impression that you were keener on showing God’s work. Whatever it is, I will share my thoughts on it later…. Don’t want to put all thoughts in one post and make it too long!

Now the arguments on Probability:

Not to mention that the very postulate that billions of the molecules trying independently of one another increases the chance of creating a replicator is completely against laws of probability.

Well, I will not argue with the laws of probability or even go to the lottery analogy. Both are a bit theoretical. Let’s take a look at a practical (something that happened) analogy. I will get to the point…keep reading.

Nasif Bhai - I am presuming you have heard of the RSA-129 challenge. The challenge in brief: There is a 129-digit number, which is the multiplication of two prime numbers. RSA (Rivest, Shamir, and Adelman?) published the 129-digit number along with an encoded message and you had to crack it by finding those two prime numbers that made up the 129-digit number. Prize: $100 – lol. (Cheap bastards)! (Oh yeah I think the amount of numbers below 129-digit number can be technically seen as the infinite set in comparison with lottery’s finite set )

RSA predicted that it would take 40 quadrillion years (4.0 x 10^16) to crack that number. To their astonishment it was cracked in just 17 years. Later RSA figured that their estimated/anticipated time had an “error”. But still their new calculation predicted that it would take at least Thousands (yeah that’s with an “S” – plural) of years to crack it.

How it was cracked: Through internet! Ah whah? Yup. But how? Well they invited people all over the world to volunteer their desktop in cracking the code. So several hundred computers along with 2 fax machines were engaged in cracking the number. It took only 8 months of real time to get the two primes. Talk about 40 quadriwhah Billion years?

So, you can’t really say with certainty that the probability of producing a “self-replicator” is almost zero. After all we are talking about the probability of something that happened billions of years ago. It’s easy to make a mistake in calculation or very likely – not to include some “catalysts” (factors), that would speed up or perhaps isolate some reactions to get better results.

Let’s get back to the RSA challenge and see some of the factors that lead to the crack. Well, obviously the computers got faster in 17 years. But also a kid name Pom?, no not pompous, I think pomrence (he is my catalyst) came up with a discovery called the quadratic sieve. He uses some clock calculators where not all numbers below 129-digit number are considered individually – some automatic elimination. In any case, the idea was that the more clocks that could be used, the closer he could get to cracking a number into its prime constituents. He couldn’t crack it with his machine though.. It was through the hundreds of computers which implemented the idea – cracked it!

Now you ask why the hell you are giving me all these cryptography jargon which has nothing to do with abiogenesis/evolution? Well I just wanted to show you that
1. Expectations (quadrillions yrs) doesn’t always comply with results (17 years).
2. There may be some factors left out from the reaction that may well increase the probability. It’s hard to believe that we got detailed and precise analysis of some billion years old environment.
3. As much as I understand, chances are more when it is done widely (more computers, more reactions etc etc).

Ok I think I had enough today….

(by the way Arnab, you might wanna summarize those probability articles - I think I am interested now... I am overwhelmed by the size, not everyone wants to go through text books )

[Orpheus]

hmmm, is this discussion dead? Here is my thoughts on creation and evolution.

Even though most of the arguments here seems to be around the origin of life from non-living matters but overall it seems like we are arguing about the existence of God. (the simple address of some of the links provided are enough clues.. ex: harunyayah.com; infidel.org etc etc). These debates are usually redundant and “end” in impasse. After all, no one wants to give up on their beliefs despite the plausibility of the arguments. It is often hard to find some refreshingly new views.

People arguing against a God usually will have tougher time persuading others, simply because people want to believe in God. Atheists also have to back-up their arguments very scientifically while a believer in God just has to find a hole in an argument to persuade everyone that God exists. Creationists often try to invalidate Evolutional ideas or any ideas that may “threaten” the existence of God. Can’t both the existence of God and evolution be true? Certainly it can and that’s what I believe in… Anyhow, from Nasif’s post:

PS: things to ponder about....

Formation of Carbon (building block of life)

“……The question to ask is, what is it in the basic laws of the universe that requires this resonance, involving three elements and the conditions inside a star, to be there? Why not have a universe without carbon? We do not know the answer…...”

Carbon is there because God created it. Cell is there because God created it.

You do understand how lame that author’s argument is right? What kind of backing for God is this, “why not have a universe w/o carbon”? These sorts of question-type arguments are done by idiots. I can also argue that “why did God create all the things that we do not need such as other galaxies or other sections of universe(s) outside our solar system?” or “Why did God have to make the human race at much later stage of an evolved Earth, why couldn’t he make Earth perfect for human since the beginning because after all, we are the sole reason why God created all these? etc etc.” Does that prove that God doesn’t exist? Nope nor the “carbon argument” proves the existence of God.

There are also some interesting arguments regarding the existence of life…arguments on many fundamental numbers of the laws of science (ex: electrical charge of electron, proton & electron mass ration etc). The argument is that the remarkable values of these numbers have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life. For ex: if the electric charge of the electron was slightly different, then stars either wouldn’t be able to burn hydrogen and helium, or wouldn’t have exploded. Thus no planets, no earth, no nothing!

So what are we left to believe in? Those numbers were placed because God wanted us to exist or we exist because those numbers are there (I hope this isn’t confusing). I think the latter idea is called the anthropic principle. Even though I don’t understand or is not interested in the whole thing but the idea is this: Let’s say there is a model for a universe – and it has its own sets of laws of science. Those laws and conditions of the universe led to the development of complicated organisms. If you ask, but why such laws – well the answer is if those weren’t the sets of laws, you wouldn’t be here and asking such ridiculous questions.

Anyways, enough!

I believe that Universe was created by God and is left alone to run by itself with all its sets of laws. The universe doesn’t work arbitrarily nor does God intervene. Everything has a process. For example, in our Holy text – we are told that each of us are created by God (by his angel) but last time I checked you were born because your mom and dad did some peculiar things. Your mom sure didn’t have an immaculate conception like Mary. Also, you weren’t just thrown from the sky, were you? We are replicating, that’s the process - a natural process. Same goes for evolution. It is a process. If it is right (I like to think so), it doesn’t prove that there is no God. If it is false, that also doesn’t prove that there is in fact a God.

I believe that there is a God who created the Universe and we are here because of evolution which was set by almighty himself. Think of it this way, the very first “Monkey” with a DNA perfectly resembling a human being is Adam! His parents are some sort of later stage monkeys evolving to human. I am sure he wasn’t just thrown into a jungle – just like you weren’t!

[Arnab]

Hmm...that's a great way to ease the inner turmoil, Orpheus. I should have tried that path...but I am kinda ever curious, which sucks.

Richard Feynman said it best: "God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand."

[Zobair]

I thought I would just stop writing on this topic...but I had to respond...but this is my last post for sure on this!

why did God create all the things that we do not need such as other galaxies or other sections of universe(s) outside our solar system?” or “Why did God have to make the human race at much later stage of an evolved Earth, why couldn’t he make Earth perfect for human since the beginning because after all, we are the sole reason why God created all these?

and you know for sure that these planets and galaxies are useless eh? wow! what a collosal waste of time for all those physicists who sleep. live and eat astronomy and astrophysics. All this theories about gravitational pull between bodies and the various emissions and their various effects on each other, all rubbish??? wow! a brave comment to make when hardly anything is known about even a corner of the universe and the farthest man has travelled is the moon.
And time can be a very relative term! If you read descriptions of time as it will be on the day of judgement and thereafter, you will see God doesnot necessarily run according to your terms. He does according to His own wishes. Even if He did creat this world for humans, why should that mean that He would want humans on earth from day 1 (especially as you know it!)???
Plus I don't think the author was justifying God's existence with that question at all. He was just trying to contemplate for a second how impossible it is to contemplate a world with out carbon. Now read the question again.

And whats wrong with discarding a theory if a flaw is found? thats how "science" works doesn't it? Isn't that how you prove and disprove scientific theories?

In the end you wanna believe what you wanna believe, and so I agree all this is pointless. There will be points in time when one side will claim partial vicotry over the other. For me its simply a matter of faith at that point, the bigger picture and try and make sense out of it. SOmewhat like if you go really close to a huge painting one loses perspective adn it can get confusing...and so sometimes its better to stand back and look at the whole picture and see what makes sense the most. To me its crystal clear. For me, the most clear proof fo existence of God is in the Quran! How on earth can you possibly explain the descriptions of the development of an human baby in such minute detail in those days?? Hell! highly qualified doctors had no choice but to admit to existence of some sort of devine intervention!!!! Have you ever read about the various scientific issues discussed in the Quran? The mathematical symmetry of that Book is astonishing! How can you reject the proof that is right in front of you? God is an invention?! Give me a break!

And some people actually claim if there is a God He is evil coz look at all the injustice in the world. SO did you expect it to be a perfect utopia?!?! News Flash! If you are a Muslim you would know this world is a test for all, every one of us tested in their own ways, every one with their own demons to fight! It was from day1 and it will be so till the day of Judgement!! Hell! the "day of judgement" should ring some bells! you only have a day of Judgement if you have something to be judged for! and you are only judged when your actions are put to test!!!!! But hey there is a utopia after all! its called Heaven for us Muslims! And when I say Muslims, I am not trying ot be exclusive...Muslim is anyone who submits to God and obeys His commandments to the best of their abilities. God is the judge and no one else!


No more from me on this topic.



[Edited on 7-8-2003 by pompous]

[Zobair]

Richard Feynman is indeed of the greates physicists of all time. YOu know who else is a darn good physiscist. Einstein! It seems eventually he himslef had to admit to the existence of God!!!! Here is a well written, easy and concise description of that I am taking from an article by Hugh Ross.


The first such scientific breakthrough arose from Einstein's theory of general relativity. Subtracting one set of his famous field equations from the other yielded the surprising result that everything in the universe is simultaneously expanding and decelerating. The only physical phenomenon satisfying simultaneous expansion and deceleration is an explosion. But, if the universe is the aftermath of an explosion, then sometime in the past it must have had a beginning. If it had a beginning, then there must be a Beginner.
Einstein's own world view initially kept him from adopting such a conclusion. Rather he proposed a new force of physics that would perfectly cancel out the deceleration and expansion induced by gravity. However, Edwin Hubble soon proved that the galaxies indeed were expanding away from one another in the manner predicted by Einstein's original formulation of general relativity. Confronted with this, Einstein gave grudging acceptance to "the necessity for a beginning," and to "the presence of a superior reasoning power
(Hugh Ross)

Ok I am done for real this time...futility of common sense ...sigh!


[Edited on 7-8-2003 by pompous]

[Nasif]

Orph:
Sorry for the delay in replying. Its a long post, but please do bear with me.

Yes I am aware of the RSA encryption. By the way as far as I know, most recent cracked RSA number was 64 bit encryption.

eWeek.com: Team Cracks RSA Encryption Challenge

There is no 129 bit encryption. There is 128bit, 256bit, 512bit encryption etc (in power of 2). The level of encryption used by your internet browser to send encrypted data over the internet is 128 bit(click on Help - About to see encryption level). Now a days though most sensitive data uses 512 bit encryption or higher. There is a new challege from XBOX hacking community. If you can break the Microsoft's 2048 bit encryption of XBOX program data signature then you make quite a sum $100,000.

The Neo Project


Aside from that I fully understand and accept the premise of collective "effort". The reason I put the word effort in quotes is that there must be an EFFORT to overcome the laws of probablity. If there is no effort then the probability law holds.

"Distributed.net, a collection of more than 331,000 volunteers who lent their machines' idle processing power to the effort, solved the challenge posed in 1997 by RSA Laboratories, the research arm of RSA Security Inc. It took nearly four years, a search through 15,769,938,165,961,326,592 keys and processing power roughly equivalent to nearly 46,000 2GHz AMD Athlon machines for the team to find the correct key."
Quoted from eWeek.com article link given above

Let us understand why RSA encryption was broken so quickly. With collective (distributed computing) effort on decryption algorithm, the probability of getting the correct number increases rapidly. Because everytime you try to generate a new number you know which seed won't work from previous attempts and so you don't try those seeds. If you didn't have this knowledge you will be faced with repeated number of same seed and same number. And here is the primary difference between "pure natural order" and a "posteriori order" (posteriori=knowledge from previous experiences).

From evolutionist point of view there is no external (deliberate) interferece in natural order. Therefore all natural systems are "priori system". This is the reason why one cannot compare probablities that refers to human works and probalities that refer to pure natural works. If there wasn't any collective effort then the RSA 64bit encryption would most likely never be broken.

You do understand how lame that author's argument is right? What kind of backing for God is this, why not have a universe w/o carbonThese sorts of question-type arguments are done by idiots.

The reason I posted the that small article was not to show God's existance but to show that there is an external force at work and there is a deliberate wish to create life. By the way, the formation of carbon is quite intruiging indeed. You have to understand how hard it is to fuse an atom if they are not stable. Fusion of H to He occurs in sun due to extraordinary stability of He at those extreme temperature. For that very reason formation of Carbon is very unlikey. I thought the article was very clear about that. Question/answer method of writing is probably this writer's way of writing. That doesn't overshadow the fact of extraordinary effort that is required to create one single atom of Carbon.

There are also some interesting arguments regarding the existence of lifeÂ…arguments on many fundamental numbers of the laws of science

I agree. There is a deliberate attempt all over this planet to create life. The air pressure, temperature (such a short range of temperature supports life thats just amazing), water cycle, seasonal changes and photosynthesis of plant (one of the most amazing thing in nature). Just amazing to think about how plant would figure out a way to convert sun's light into food. A perfect life would have self food creation system like plants and mobility like animal. That would have given it full control over the planet. Sadly that type of life never evolved on this earth. Wonder why natural selection didn't select best of both world?

I believe that Universe was created by God and is left alone to run by itself with all its sets of laws.

I beg to differ. God is active all over the world. Without His authorization nothing can happen. God is in Full Control.


(Quran 35:11)
GOD created you from dust, then from a tiny drop, then He causes you to reproduce through your spouses. No female becomes pregnant, nor gives birth, without His knowledge. No one survives for a long life, and no one's life is snapped short, except in accordance with a pre-existing record. This is easy for GOD.

(Quran 13:8)
GOD knows what every female bears, and what every womb releases, or gains. Everything He does is perfectly measured.

(Quran 6:59)
With Him are the keys to all secrets; none knows them except He. He knows everything on land and in the sea. Not a leaf falls without His knowledge. Nor is there a grain in the depths of the soil. Nor is there anything wet or dry, that is not recorded in a profound record.


You may ask then why do we have a choice to have a child whenever we want? Well, you may wish to have a child and have sex but you cannot have a child unless its authorized. Doesn't matter how hard you try, ultimately you are left to mercy of God. And the choice to have a child or do anything is a responsibility given to us due to something we did before, some act of transgression!

(Quran 33:72) We have offered the responsibility (freedom of choice) to the heavens and the earth, and the mountains, but they refused to bear it, and were afraid of it. But the human being accepted it; he was transgressing, ignorant.


And no, clonning doesn't mean you created a new life. You can create a new life only when you can create a Zygote that will reproduce and create a whole living system.

=============================

My posts on this thread is indeed to expose the fallasy and common misconception held about the theory of evolution. Our world is so much media centric that one cannot grasp the truth unless one seeks it with certain amount effort and hardship. Media and so called majority of "modern" man loves the theory of evolution not because it is the most scientifically sound hypothesis, but rather because he feels he has explained/detailed a world where no one is controlled or answerable to any higher power. It is sad that people often refers that science and religion cannot stay together. In saying so man forgets man's original quest to study science! Original quest of science started thousands of years ago to explain the creation of God. To marvel at the magnificence of this creation. It is not man who is creating the new ideas of science, it is God who created the quarks, the protons, the elections, the atom, the fusion, the fission, the matter, the anti-matter, you, me and 6 billion others human and trillion other living system on this tiny planet. And we still want to rival God's Authority with websites like infidel.org . How sad indeed.

I truely hope I have not offended anyone. I am here for the same reason you are here. To discuss ideas. No one can force anyone to believe in anything. But we can always discuss. That is the essence of knowledge.

(Quran 17:36)
You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them.

[Arnab]

hmm...now that my summer courses are over, should I indulge into the topic a little more and launch a full scale tornado attack?