Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
2 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,806 Year: 3,063/9,624 Month: 908/1,588 Week: 91/223 Day: 2/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   The Simplest Protein of Life
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(4)
Message 16 of 281 (674782)
10-02-2012 9:40 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by BoredomSetsIn
10-02-2012 6:33 AM


When did I ever say this has to do with evolution??
I have been studying "creation science" since 1981 and discussing it since about 1985, so I have about 30 years experience. During that time, I have seen creationists try all kinds of thoroughly dishonest and deceitful tricks, including outright and blatant lies. One of the sickest deceptions that I've seen a number of creationists attempt has been to vehemently deny the obvious, including vehemently denying that they're creationists or even Christians, though they usually drop that pretense within a few posts. Not that they ever fooled anyone, since what they had written had made it blatantly obvious what they were and what they meant. Needless to say, such outrageous conduct only serves to drive our opinion of creationists and of many Christians even lower.
I'm not lumping you in with those low-lifes, but my decades of experience inform me to not accept your claim at face value; I'll wait and see. The dead turkey you dropped in our laps is an old creationist canard. We know only too well how that script plays: Starting from my totally mistaken idea of how evolution works, I dream up a probability of that mistaken idea of evolution working that is so abysmally low that I can then "prove" that evolution is impossible and there must be a creator. Everybody here can see your post for what it really is. If you honestly believe that it has nothing to do with evolution, then you have succeeded in deceiving yourself.
And now in your reply, you come out and say:
Yes, but we are talking about the chances of it forming, with out a creator.
Just like with those sickest of creationist liars, which riases my suspicions about you.
And speaking of evolving...
DWise1 writes:
Rather, we would expect a protein to have evolved from a predecessor, which is far more probable, approaching inevitable.
I was unaware proteins could evolve
Yes, they do. But since you want to play the stupid rhetorical game of hyper-specificity, then to state it far more explicitly:
quote:
As species evolve, their genetic code changes through various mechanisms, including mutation. The only kind of mutation that has any relevance to evolution are genetic mutations, specifically genetic mutations in germ cells, AKA "gametes", eg sperm and ova. The types of these genetic mutations are small in number and involve mainly base substitution, base addition or deletion, duplication, and transposition.
Base substitution in particular can often result in different codons which in turn can often result in a different amino acid being substituted into the sequence of the protein specified by that mutated gene. Since a large number, if not most, positions in protein sequences can accept a number of different amino acids, or any amino acid, such substitutions do not affect the functioning of the protein and hence cause no selective pressure; they are deemed "neutral". Scientists have used the rate at which these neutral mutations can accumulate as a kind of "molecular clock", but that "clock" can be thrown off if a mutation is subject to selection as in the case of lysozyme rapidly evolving into alpha-lactalbumin. But regardless, comparing different species' protein sequences can reveal how closely or distantly related to each other those species are.
As you can see, "we would expect a protein to have evolved" is a much more concise way to say exactly the same thing.
...and of course something the human eye has never witnessed is inevitable.
Look at what I said in Message 5:
DWise1 writes:
What you describe, a protein being created by falling together by chance, is descriptive of creation ex nihilo, which most certainly is extremely improbable. Rather, we would expect a protein to have evolved from a predecessor, which is far more probable, approaching inevitable.
Your abortive creation ex nihilo method of the entire protein just falling together is extremely improbable, because it uses single-step selection which requires that the entire process must always start all over again from scratch each time it fails. That is why you need a creator to make it work. But evolution instead uses cumulative selection, in which you don't start from scratch every time, but rather from your last position. Evolution is the result of life doing what life naturally does. Cumulative selection is compatible and even descriptive of what life does, whereas your single-step selection has nothing to do with what life does. With single-step selection, it's almost impossible to succeed, whereas with cumulative selection it's almost impossible to fail.
Again, read my page, MONKEY PROBABILITIES (MPROBS), for an analysis of the probabilities of both single-step and cumulative selection, which are discussed on my MONKEY page.
DWise1 writes:
Also, you falsely claim that every single one of those 124 amino acids positions on that protein are specified for one and only one amino acid.
I never said that. Read carefully. The other versions don't matter right now.
I did read it carefully. You did indeed specify specific amino acids to each position. Read what you yourself had written and this time read it carefully:
It is made from 124 amino acids, the first one in the strand being Lysine. There are 17 different amino acids in this protein, so to simplify it, lets say that there is a 1/17 chance of Lysine coming first. The second one in line, is Glutamic acid. The odds of it coming second are 1/289. Then comes Threonine. Chances of it coming 3rd are 1/4913. If we continue down the list, the end result is 1 followed by 552 zeroes.
Now even you should be able to see clearly that you did indeed specify a specific amino acid to each and every one of the 124 positions in that protein. How could you even begin to think that you could deny such an obvious fact?
Actually, there are 24 amino acids.
No, rather there are about 500 known amino acids, but only 22 are proteinogenic. And of those 22, only twenty (20) are used by humans and other eukaryotes in creating proteins. From Wikipedia's Amino Acid:
quote:
About 500 amino acids are known which can be classified in many ways. . . .
Amino acids having both the amine and carboxylic acid groups attached to the first, or alpha, carbon atom have particular importance in biochemistry. They are known as 2-, alpha-, or a-amino acids (generic formula H2NCHRCOOH in most cases where R is an organic substituent known as a "side-chain"); often the term "amino acid" is used to refer specifically to these. They include the 22 proteinogenic ("protein building") amino acids which combine into peptide chains ("polypeptides") to form the building blocks of a vast array of proteins. These are all L-stereoisomers (left handed isomers) although a few D-amino acids (right handed) occur in bacterial envelopes and some antibiotics. 20 of the 22 proteinogenic amino acids are known as "standard" amino acids-those found in human beings and other eukaryotes, and which are encoded directly within the universal genetic code. The 2 exceptions are the "non-standard" or "non-canonical" pyrrolysine found only in some methanogenic organisms but not humans and selenocysteine; both of these are encoded via variant codons signaled by mRNA instead.
DWise1 writes:
IOW, it is meaningless to build a probability argument based on what has already happened. Because the probability of something that has already happened is and will always be 1.0, dead certainty.
Yes, but we are talking about the chances of it forming, with out a creator. So, since we are talking about an unconfirmed theory, I believe its fine to talk about the chances of something happening like this.
So, you present a creation ex nihilo scenario and come up with a calculation that shows it to be extremely improbable to have happened without a creator. And that is correct. But if you then introduce a creator, what are the probabilities then? And what does this prove except that in a creation ex nihilo scenario you would need something to interject and make things happen. So what?
You left out a third scenario, that it had evolved. Now that would involve a completely different mechanism for protein formation than you had presented (ie, the way that life actually does it) and with it a completely different set of probabilities.
And to answer you question, I did some of the calculations. The rest I got out of my biology book. But give me a break, I'm in grade 9.
First, nobody here gets any slack cut them, Captain Walker! If you want to try to run with the big dogs, then you need to be able to keep up on your own. Besides, there's the suspicion you've raised.
And BTW, your calculation is off. The entire probability should be (1/17)124, which comes out to be 2.6566463724254902266033244604965e-153, or 1 to 3.7641441871204352510844975399203e+152, hundreds of orders of magnitude higher than you had come up with. Could you please show some of your work on that? Or if that's not the part you had done, then provide your source.
{ABE}
PS
For that matter, did your probability argument come from your "textbook"? What is the title of your textbook and who are the authors? And what kind of school are you in?
Edited by dwise1, : PS

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by BoredomSetsIn, posted 10-02-2012 6:33 AM BoredomSetsIn has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by zaius137, posted 10-04-2012 2:47 AM dwise1 has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 17 of 281 (674789)
10-03-2012 1:17 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by BoredomSetsIn
10-02-2012 6:33 AM


When did I ever say this has to do with evolution??
You didn't. Which is kind of like discussing the origin of cheese without mentioning milk.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by BoredomSetsIn, posted 10-02-2012 6:33 AM BoredomSetsIn has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 18 of 281 (674859)
10-03-2012 3:08 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by BoredomSetsIn
10-02-2012 6:33 AM


A Correction
BoredomSetsIn:
I need to point out an error in my first reply, Message 5, in which I miscalculated the probability of drawing a specific poker hand:
DWise1 writes:
Specifically, there are four ways to get a royal flush, so the probability of a royal flush (p) is 1.2825643e-8 and the probability against (q) is 0.999999987. Very unlikely that you would deal a royal flush in one single hand. But get 10,000,000 poker players to deal 100 hands each for a total of one billion hands and the probabilities reverse themselves such that p becomes 0.9999973 (very near dead certainty) while q becomes 2.6908776e-6 (very unlikely) -- it's around 50 million hands where the odds become 50/50.
I had arrived at a probability that was 120 times lower than it should be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinations:
quote:
In mathematics a combination is a way of selecting several things out of a larger group, where (unlike permutations) order does not matter.
The formulae for combinations and permutations of n items taken k at a time are:
quote:
C(n,k) = n! / ( k! (n-k)! )
P(n,k) = n! /(n-k)!
My approach to calculating the probability of drawing a specific poker hand was to multiply the joint probabilities of drawing those specific cards: 1/52 x 1/51 x 1/50 x 1/49 x 1/48 = 1/311,875,200.
The error I made in that calculation was that I was implicitly specifying the order in which those 5 cards were dealt, whereas order should not matter. IOW, I had calculated the permutation whereas I actually needed the combination. Since there are 5!=120 ways to order 5 cards, it turns out that the probability of getting one specific hand is 120 times greater than I had calculated:
120/311,875,200 = 1/2,598,960 = 3.8477e-7.
Now to rewrite that paragraph and add a table of probabilities:
quote:
Specifically, there are four ways to get a royal flush, so the probability of a royal flush (p) is 1.539e-6 and the probability against (q) is 0.99999846. Very unlikely that you would deal a royal flush in one single hand. But get 30,000 poker players to deal 100 hands each for a total of three million hands and the probabilities reverse themselves such that p becomes 0.9901199239 (very near dead certainty) while q becomes 0.00988007614 (rather highly unlikely) -- it's just around 450,000 hands where the odds become 50/50.

Num Hands p q
1,000 0.0015378946 0.99846210542
10,000 0.0152729507 0.98472704928
100,000 0.1426489652 0.85735103481
450,000 0.4997189604 0.50028103965
1,000,000 0.7854212239 0.21457877605
2,000,000 0.9539559489 0.04604405113
3,000,000 0.9901199239 0.00988007614

Just thought that as a student you should see what kinds of mistakes can be made in setting up a problem and that when we make a mistake we need to correct it. Hiding a mistake is called "covering it up". Cover-ups are not good; it was President Nixon's involvement in the cover-up of a crime that had led to his resignation.
And OBTW, we have this part of your claim in Message 1:
BoredomSetsIn writes:
If we continue down the list, the end result is 1 followed by 552 zeroes. To put that in perspective, It's the same as a poker player drawing 19 royal flushes in a row, with out trading in any cards.
The probability of drawing a royal flush is 1.539e-6, so the probability of drawing it 19 times in a row is (1.539e-6)19, which is 3.610e-111. Which is 3.610e+441 times more probable than your purported probability of 10-552, which in turn is wrong by a factor of 2.656646e+399 -- it should have been 2.656646e-153.
Just exactly where did you get that claim from?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by BoredomSetsIn, posted 10-02-2012 6:33 AM BoredomSetsIn has not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 19 of 281 (674862)
10-03-2012 3:47 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by shadow71
10-02-2012 7:28 PM


shadow71 writes:
Can you tell us how the protons, electrons and hydrogen atoms came into existence?
You're moving the goalposts. The topic is about making a protein out of TinkerToys, not about how to manufacture TinkerToys.
shadow71 writes:
The fallacy of your argument is that you assume everything happens naturally.
Do you have evidence for this natural origin?
It isn't an assumption. We're only talking about things that do happen naturally. Children fight over toys naturally. Atoms bond naturally. If you want to prevent atoms from bonding in their natural ways, you have to give them natural alternatives.
shadow71 writes:
What seems more logical, a planned reason for these events, or "well stuff happens" and we don't want to speculate about how it happened.
What's more logical is processes that we know about, not speculation about some unknown "planner".

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by shadow71, posted 10-02-2012 7:28 PM shadow71 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by shadow71, posted 10-03-2012 7:31 PM ringo has seen this message but not replied

  
shadow71
Member (Idle past 2933 days)
Posts: 706
From: Joliet, il, USA
Joined: 08-31-2010


Message 20 of 281 (674874)
10-03-2012 7:31 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by ringo
10-03-2012 3:47 PM


Sorry, I am not allowed to answer. See Percy message # 15.
Edited by shadow71, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by ringo, posted 10-03-2012 3:47 PM ringo has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by Admin, posted 10-03-2012 8:06 PM shadow71 has not replied

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12995
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 21 of 281 (674875)
10-03-2012 8:06 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by shadow71
10-03-2012 7:31 PM


shadow71 writes:
Sorry, I am not allowed to answer. See Percy message # 15.
I didn't say you weren't allowed to answer. I said that if you'd like to discuss the simplest protein of life, which is the topic of this thread, then please continue participating here.
And I said that if you'd like to discuss the topics you're attempting to discuss here, which are not the topic of this thread, then please find threads where they would be on-topic, or propose a new thread over at Proposed New Topics.
And I said you could just continue as you are I would suspend your posting permissions in this forum.
In other words, of course you're allowed to answer. Just be sure to find a thread where it would be on topic, or propose a new thread over at Proposed New Topics, and post your answer. Then post a short note here with a link to your answer.
So go ahead, answer any replies to your off-topic posts, just don't do it in this thread.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by shadow71, posted 10-03-2012 7:31 PM shadow71 has not replied

  
zaius137
Member (Idle past 3409 days)
Posts: 407
Joined: 05-08-2012


Message 22 of 281 (674901)
10-04-2012 2:47 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by dwise1
10-02-2012 9:40 PM


dwise1,
The common way evolutionists minimize the problems of forming a protein ex nihilo (I do not like this term but it seems you do) is to minimize the vastness of the very low probabilities. For example, the probability of drawing 19 royal flushes in a row.
The probability of drawing a royal flush is 1.539e-6, so the probability of drawing it 19 times in a row is (1.539e-6)19, which is 3.610e-111.
From the wiki it clearly states:
quote:
The following enumerates the (absolute) frequency of each hand, given all combinations of 5 cards randomly drawn from a full deck of 52 without replacement. 649,739:1
Raise this to the 19th power you get 2.767195 e^110:1. Applying a little perspective, you get the following scenario.
The universe is estimated to contain ~1080 atoms. To pick an exact single atom say that was labeled ahead of time (marked in some way) a single first choice would be 1080:1. However, the probability of your choice is ~ 10100:1, trillions and trillions of times less. So where is that atom? Is it in the computer screen in front of you or in one of the trillions of co-universes out there somewhere floating around an unnamed nebula?
Secondly, you minimize the replacing of a single amino acid in a protein. Did you know that a protein exhibits four critical organizations by changing a single amino acid you may not significantly change one organization but will certainly alter one of the other critical organizations.
quote:
Structure in a protein:
Protein structure - Wikipedia
You further assert.
No, rather there are about 500 known amino acids, but only 22 are proteinogenic. And of those 22, only twenty (20) are used by humans and other eukaryotes in creating proteins. From Wikipedia's Amino Acid:
But the fact that life does not favor the rest of the amino acids does not say that they will not form peptides and poly peptides even with the 20 present in life. Still they must be considered in a random chance for assembly. That would force the probability to take the form (1/500^n). Any calculation of a random forming poly peptide would start with (1/500)n. Unless you remove all the other naturally forming amino acids from the flask in the lab before you start you experiment. Wait that is an intervention by an intelligent being.
It is late where I am at so I will redo your mistakes in calculations tomorrow.
Good night my friend.
P.S. we have not even discussed the limits established in very small probabilities

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by dwise1, posted 10-02-2012 9:40 PM dwise1 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by Dr Adequate, posted 10-04-2012 3:19 AM zaius137 has not replied
 Message 24 by dwise1, posted 10-04-2012 3:12 PM zaius137 has replied
 Message 33 by Taq, posted 10-09-2012 3:45 PM zaius137 has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(4)
Message 23 of 281 (674905)
10-04-2012 3:19 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by zaius137
10-04-2012 2:47 AM


The common way evolutionists minimize the problems of forming a protein ex nihilo ...
... is to point out that no evolutionist believes that that is what happened.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by zaius137, posted 10-04-2012 2:47 AM zaius137 has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 24 of 281 (674955)
10-04-2012 3:12 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by zaius137
10-04-2012 2:47 AM


... forming a protein ex nihilo (I do not like this term but it seems you do) ...
The reason why I apply that term to the scenario of a modern protein forming by amino acids spontaneously linking up is because what such a scenario describes is indeed a creation ex nihilo scenario.
Furthermore, it is a purely speculative scenario that does not exist in reality. In the real world, proteins are formed within the tissues of organisms with great regularity through mechanisms that are fairly well understood by scientists and educated normals, but apparently not by creationists who keep coming up with these imaginary probability arguments. Only somebody who is ignorant, or is an idiot, or is a dogma-blinded orangutan (who is jealous of the chimpanzees who dare to do real science), or is a liar intent on deceiving others would for one moment believe that modern proteins are formed by amino acids spontaneously linking up out of pure chance.
Please note that most creationists are rank-and-file followers and so would be grouped among the ignorant and the dogma-blinded, the latter group including the delusional, the self-delusional, and the willfully ignorant. It is the creationists who know how proteins actually form and yet who concoct and disseminate these ludicrous probability claims who are the liars, though that would not exclude them from being dogma-blinded. Even though most of those lies are spread by the rank-and-file who believe them to be true, that does not make them any less a lie; all that does is allow for moral judgements that the creationist spreading the lie while believing it to be true is not guilty of lying, even though the lie has the same effect and consequences regardless of whether the one spreading it believes it to be true or knows it to be a lie.
Now, there are many instances in nature of amino acids spontaneously linking up to form peptide chains, but that is still not how modern proteins form. So this kind of creationist probability argument is still based on ludicrously false premises and is still meaningless.
For example, the probability of drawing 19 royal flushes in a row.
DWise1 writes:
The probability of drawing a royal flush is 1.539e-6, so the probability of drawing it 19 times in a row is (1.539e-6)19, which is 3.610e-111.
From the wiki it clearly states:
quote:
The following enumerates the (absolute) frequency of each hand, given all combinations of 5 cards randomly drawn from a full deck of 52 without replacement. 649,739:1
Raise this to the 19th power you get 2.767195 e^110:1.
First, what wiki? Just exactly where did you pull that quote from, a netherly bodily orifice? If you are going to provide a quote, then also provide a reference to the source!
Second, why are you trying to call my probability calculation into question? For what purpose?
Now, hopefully you should know that probabilities are given within the range of 0 to 1, inclusive, with 0 being impossibility and 1 being dead certainty. Therefore, they are given as decimal fractions, though they could also be expressed as an equivalent percentage. The notation of n:1 translates to 1/n .
2.767195e+110:1 -> 1/2.767195e+110 = 3.613768e-111.
Which is the same as my result, 3.610e-111 (SRA). So what point were you trying to make? Or didn't you even both to do the math?
Also, 2.767195 e^110 says "2.767195 times the natural exponent raised to the 110th power." Just how did the natural exponent get involved in this? Or do you not understand standard computerized scientific notation?
Applying a little perspective, you get the following scenario.
The universe is estimated to contain ~1080 atoms. To pick an exact single atom say that was labeled ahead of time (marked in some way) a single first choice would be 1080:1. However, the probability of your choice is ~ 10100:1, trillions and trillions of times less. So where is that atom? Is it in the computer screen in front of you or in one of the trillions of co-universes out there somewhere floating around an unnamed nebula?
Well, that certainly was meaningless. Here's another scenario you might consider, a much more realistic one, though it would be very difficult to calculate the exact probabilities.
As is true for everybody (with their own respective parents, of course), your personal genome is the amalgamation of randomly formed halves of your two biological parents' own genomes. What is the probability of that particular spermazon fusing with that particular ovum? For that matter, what is the probability of your parents even having happened to meet and mate? And what is the probability of your having come to term and been born without a mishap during delivery? And of your surviving infancy and childhood and the rest of life up to this point in time? All of those are joint independent probabilities, so they all get multiplied together. That probability is pretty low, isn't it?
Well then, now apply the same to both your parents and to their parents and to their parents going further and further back through generation after countless generation back over 10's and 100's of thousands of years and much, much more. Each and every one of those events (that particular fusion of two half genomes followed by survival in order to spawn the next generation) had to have happened. If any single event in that long, long chain that led to you did not happen, then neither would you have and you would not exist.
For example, my great-great-grandfather came from Baden, Germany, and my great-great-grandmother from Ireland. Somehow they met and married in Missouri. What were the odds of that happening? They settled in Lawrence, Kansas. On 21 Aug 1863, while he was holding his two-year-old son, my great-great-grandfather was shot through the heart by one of Quantrill's raiders and the same bullet struck the boy in the head. Both were laid in the pile of dead from that raid, but in the night guards heard the child crying and found that instead of having been killed he had only been grazed. That boy lived to become my great-grandfather. If that bullet had been aimed a fraction of an inch to the side, that boy would have died and I would not exist.
And yet, despite the extremely low probability of it, we both do exist, as do billions of other people and as had all the generations that had come before. And the same applies to all wild populations of plant and animal. With such extremely low probability of having come about, this is exactly how the world has turned out to be.
Now, this is an example of calculating the probability for an event that has already happened, which is in turn an example of The Sharpshooter Fallacy that Taq pointed out in Message 4. So it's not just a matter of coming up with probabilities, but rather also about understanding the context and therefore what those probabilities mean. Coming up with impressively large numbers devoid of meaning to impress an ignorant audience is a form of deception; eg, Kent Hovind's deliberately deceptive solar-mass-loss claim.
Secondly, you minimize the replacing of a single amino acid in a protein. Did you know that a protein exhibits four critical organizations by changing a single amino acid you may not significantly change one organization but will certainly alter one of the other critical organizations.
And yet we have compiled extensive libraries of proteins' amino-acid sequences gathered from many different species. And with those sequences we can compare the same protein from different species and we can see the differences in those sequences. And there are a lot of differences. Depending on the protein in question, the count can easily range between 10 and 20. For example, in Walter Brown's deliberate deception about a rattlesnake protein comparison, using the data from a comparison study by Margaret Dayhoff which compared cytochrome c, consisting of 100 to 104 amino acids, between 47 organisms, humans and rattlesnakes differed by 14 amino acids and humans and macque monkeys by one amino acid; in a later study, human and chimpanzee cytochrome c were found to be identical -- because the study had included no other snakes, all the other species were as distant from the rattlesnake as were humans, but because the others had slightly more differences Brown claimed that humans and rattlesnakes were more closely related, though he had to ignore the macque. If you insist that changing a single amino acid would radically change the protein into something else, then how do you explain the same protein having so many different amino acids and yet still remaining the same protein?
Now, of course, if an amino acid substitution caused a protein to become a different protein, then that would not have been a neutral mutation, right? I do not see where I had said anything different than that. So what's your point?
You further assert.
DWise1 writes:
No, rather there are about 500 known amino acids, but only 22 are proteinogenic. And of those 22, only twenty (20) are used by humans and other eukaryotes in creating proteins. From Wikipedia's Amino Acid:
But the fact that life does not favor the rest of the amino acids does not say that they will not form peptides and poly peptides even with the 20 present in life.
At no point did I ever say that the other amino acids will not form peptides. But then not all peptides are proteins, now are they? Rather, only 22 amino acids are used to form proteins and only twenty, termed "standard proteinogenic", are used by eukaryotes to form proteins. We are, after all, talking about forming proteins rather than just any old peptide, and for that matter we are talking specifically about eukaryote proteins, so only the twenty standard proteinogenic amino acids need be considered when we are talking about eukaryote proteins. Right? And if you disagree with that simple concept, then explain exactly why you disagree!
Still they must be considered in a random chance for assembly. That would force the probability to take the form (1/500^n). Any calculation of a random forming poly peptide would start with (1/500)n. Unless you remove all the other naturally forming amino acids from the flask in the lab before you start you experiment. Wait that is an intervention by an intelligent being.
Only if you concoct an imaginary contrary-to-fact creation ex-nihilo scenario for the formation of modern proteins. Which is a ludicrous evolution. Yet again, that is not how proteins form!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by zaius137, posted 10-04-2012 2:47 AM zaius137 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by Dr Adequate, posted 10-04-2012 4:14 PM dwise1 has not replied
 Message 28 by zaius137, posted 10-06-2012 1:09 AM dwise1 has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 25 of 281 (674964)
10-04-2012 4:14 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by dwise1
10-04-2012 3:12 PM


It is the creationists who know how proteins actually form and yet who concoct and disseminate these ludicrous probability claims who are the liars ...
That may however constitute an empty set.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by dwise1, posted 10-04-2012 3:12 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
shadow71
Member (Idle past 2933 days)
Posts: 706
From: Joliet, il, USA
Joined: 08-31-2010


(1)
Message 26 of 281 (674987)
10-04-2012 7:16 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Admin
10-02-2012 9:28 PM


Re: Evidence
ringo writes:
Consider a room full of children, each one holding a toy. As they mill about aimlessly, a child sees another toy that he'd like to have, so he reaches for it. But the other child won't let go and he, in turn, reaches for the first child's toy. Soon all of the children are "bonded" together in pairs, held together by the toys that both children want.
The children are like protons and the toys are like electrons and the pairs of children are like hydrogen atoms, bonded together by a pair of electrons that they both want.
And it all happens naturally. The probability that the bonds will form is 100%
.
In ringo's message, I don't really see any mention of proteins of life. I see an opinion that life will evolve from natural mechanisms.
How is his post on topic and mine is not?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by Admin, posted 10-02-2012 9:28 PM Admin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 27 by Admin, posted 10-04-2012 9:36 PM shadow71 has not replied

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12995
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 27 of 281 (674998)
10-04-2012 9:36 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by shadow71
10-04-2012 7:16 PM


Re: Evidence
Ringo was answering a question about how the bonds between the amino acids of a protein form.
This isn't a dialog. Please do not reply to me here, and please stop posting to this thread unless it is to discuss the topic.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by shadow71, posted 10-04-2012 7:16 PM shadow71 has not replied

  
zaius137
Member (Idle past 3409 days)
Posts: 407
Joined: 05-08-2012


Message 28 of 281 (675117)
10-06-2012 1:09 AM
Reply to: Message 24 by dwise1
10-04-2012 3:12 PM


Your case is lost...
(dwise1)
Poker probability by wikiPoker probability - Wikipedia
Furthermore, it is a purely speculative scenario that does not exist in reality. In the real world, proteins are formed within the tissues of organisms with great regularity through mechanisms that are fairly well understood by scientists and educated normals, but apparently not by creationists who keep coming up with these imaginary probability arguments.
Apparently, you are reading something into the thread that was not in the P.O.s originating statement.
P.O.
quote:
To conclude, I think the chances of a living cell forming from chemicals that just happened to bond, is ridiculously unlikely.
Do you catch the phrase living cell forming from chemicals...
I think a high school student can draw the conclusion that this participant is talking about the forming of a protein in a pre-biotic environment. Albeit poorly stated the alternate conclusion is not apropos a controversy.
At no point did I ever say that the other amino acids will not form peptides. But then not all peptides are proteins, now are they? Rather, only 22 amino acids are used to form proteins and only twenty, termed "standard proteinogenic", are used by eukaryotes to form proteins.
In an uncontrolled environment, who is to say what natural amino-acids are floating around. My point is that you cannot pick out 22 or so and disregard the other possible candidates for forming a polypeptide (a protein). This is like stacking the deck prior to drawing the card.
Now if you examined the Urey-Miller results there were as follows
quote:
what about the results of Miller’s experiment? He obtained a soup that contained around 9 amino acids, 2% of the simplest, glycine and alanine, and traces of 7 others. (A number of other organic compounds were produced in small quantities but they have no significance in the origin of life scenario and could even hinder further progress by reacting with the amino acids). http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/.../content/article/51.html
You do notice how many amino acids were formed. Besides probability, you must also calculate in the equilibrium constant for the appropriate reaction (unless an intelligent agent tips the equilibrium in one direction).
You talk about how ignorant creationist arguments are. My good friend, look in the mirror before sticking your foot directly into your mouth. This argument is so one sided in the Creationists camp that I hardly believe I am wasting my time.
We are, after all, talking about forming proteins rather than just any old peptide, and for that matter we are talking specifically about eukaryote proteins
You may be but the P.O. is not. (A PROTEIN IS A POLYPEPTIDE).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by dwise1, posted 10-04-2012 3:12 PM dwise1 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by Blue Jay, posted 10-08-2012 12:36 PM zaius137 has not replied

  
Alfred Maddenstein
Member (Idle past 3966 days)
Posts: 565
Joined: 04-01-2011


Message 29 of 281 (675166)
10-07-2012 11:28 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by dwise1
10-01-2012 2:55 PM


No, what is dead certainty is only that life is present. The suggestion that is it was created either by Gods or spontaneous abiogenesis out of non-life is but a conjecture. Not anything given. Vast difference. Your proposition is: once upon a time there was a time when life was totally absent in every location in the Universe. What do you support such a proposition with? Nothing but blah-blah-blah.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by dwise1, posted 10-01-2012 2:55 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


(1)
Message 30 of 281 (675211)
10-08-2012 12:36 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by zaius137
10-06-2012 1:09 AM


Re: Your case is lost...
Hi, Zaius.
I don't believe I've had the pleasure.
Forgive me, but I'm only going to quote a couple phrases from the exchange between you and dwise1 here:
zaius127 writes:
dwise1 writes:
In the real world, proteins are formed within the tissues of organisms with great regularity through mechanisms that are fairly well understood ....
I think a high school student can draw the conclusion that this participant is talking about the forming of a protein in a pre-biotic environment.
Dwise1's argument is that the specific protein in question (RNasa A) did not form in a prebiotic soup: rather, it is formed in the cells of living organisms. Some other peptide (possibly a much shorter one) was formed in a prebiotic soup or somesuch, and the sequence was gradually edited over long periods of time in a decidedly non-random fashion, until it became the 124-acid sequence that it is today.
I realize that probably neither you nor BoredomSetsIn accepts that this is how the protein formed, but this is how evolutionists think this protein formed. So, math questioning the feasibility of a modern protein forming randomly in prebiotic conditions is not relevant.
If you or BoredomSetsIn were able to provide some math demonstrating the infeasibility of forming a random peptide and selectively editing it over billions of years until it looks like modern RNase A, then your math would be relevant to the evolution/creation debate.
zaius137 writes:
In an uncontrolled environment, who is to say what natural amino-acids are floating around. My point is that you cannot pick out 22 or so and disregard the other possible candidates for forming a polypeptide (a protein). This is like stacking the deck prior to drawing the card.
Actually, I kind of agree with you here, but only kind of. I have no idea why life uses only 20-22 amino acids. Maybe the other 480 were less available, and were thus not incorporated, or maybe they were less suitable, and were weeded out early in the selective process---this is beyond my expertise.
But, I have to imagine that, whether the origin of life was natural or designed, the exclusive use of those amino acids was not entirely random: those 20-22 acids were used because they filled the role better than others would have.
So, perhaps a compromise is best. We'd need to figure out which amino acids might have been available, and which amino acids were likely to be dropped because of unsuitability. But, certainly it is reasonable to count more than just 22 amino acids as candidates for protein production.
I do not think this will significantly alter the probabilities, though, because it's a change of 1 order of magnitude, which would shift the exponent on the probability from 111 to 110. Once the exponents get that high, one more zero isn't that big a deal.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by zaius137, posted 10-06-2012 1:09 AM zaius137 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by onifre, posted 10-08-2012 1:04 PM Blue Jay has not replied
 Message 32 by Percy, posted 10-08-2012 6:00 PM Blue Jay has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024