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Author Topic:   The Truth About Evolution and Religion
dwise1
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Posts: 5952
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 59 of 419 (560837)
05-17-2010 9:24 PM
Reply to: Message 53 by dkroemer
05-17-2010 8:05 PM


Re: Complexity is to be expected
You should add Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker to your reading list. At the very least, the first half of Chapter 3, in which he describes the difference between single-step selection (SSS, to make my typing go faster) and cumulative selection (CS). In SSS, you try to get everything to fall randomly in place all at once, then you try again from scratch, and again from scratch, etc. OTOH, CS uses each attempt as the starting point for the next attempt. SSS selection is what creationists and IDists claim that evolution uses, whereas CS is what evolution does use.
The effectiveness of SSS can be calculated directly and, as you stated, it results in an extremely low probability, so low as to be deemed virtually impossible. But that's not what evolution uses. To illustrate and test a CS model, he wrote his WEASEL program in BASIC that used CS to generate a single line of Shakespeare, "Methinks it is like a weasel". They started the program and left for lunch and and it was finished by the time they returned. In the book, he does not provide a code listing, but he does describe what the program does. Armed with that information, many skeptics have written their own versions of WEASEL in their own choice of language (BASIC, being an interpreted language, is rather slow and so is not a very good choice unless you're not a very experienced programmer). The Wikipedia article that Modulus pointed you to (please read it) points to a long-established page that presents a number of those programs: Almost Like a Whale.
My own program, MONKEY, was written a couple decades ago in Turbo Pascal (I am David Wise). You can download my program along with the source code from his site (my own is down until I can find a new provider). Unfortunately, a timing loop in the start-up code of TP started failing when PCs started running faster, as described by Musgrave on his page. I found and incorporated a fix for that, but I don't know whether Musgrave ever got it.
I wrote MONKEY because I couldn't believe Dawkins' claim. I calculated the SSS probability and assumed a computer much faster than my PC/XT (Norton Factor 2) that could perform a million tests per second and came to the conclusion that in order to have one chance in a million that computer would need to run for a couple hundred billion years, many times longer that the universe has been in existence. But with CS, MONKEY succeeded within a few minutes (most often within 30 seconds, depending on population size) consistently, repeatedly, without fail.
I then analyzed the probabilities involved, though for CS I had to employ Markovian chains. What I found was that the only way for MONKEY to fail using CS would be for almost every single attempt to fail, the probability for which is much lower that the probability for SSS to succeed.
I just checked and Musgrave included my calculations and write-up on his page.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5952
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.7


(2)
Message 122 of 419 (560978)
05-18-2010 10:48 AM
Reply to: Message 96 by dkroemer
05-18-2010 8:10 AM


Re: and yet, curiously, it is still explained by evolution ...
Bullshit!
The chance of getting a protein by random mutations is 300 to the 20th power.
That may be, but what does that have to do with evolution? What you are describing is creation ex nihilo, whose probability is indeed abysmally low. Unlike evolution which borders on the inevitable.
A year is only a billion or trillion seconds.
1 min = 60 sec
1 hr = 60 min = 3,600 sec
1 dy = 24 hr = 86,400 sec
1 yr = 365.2524 days = 31,557,807.36 sec
31.56 million is one-31.687879'th of one billion -- of an American billion; the European billion is 1,000 times greater, so 31.56 million would be one-31,687.879'th of a billion. An American trillion is 1,000 times greater than an American billion and a European trillion 1,000,000 times greater than a European trillion, both of which shows to you be ever further off-track.
Instead of spouting bullshit, why not try to speak the truth?
To get a perfect bridge hand, you would have to have everyone playing bridge for 13 zillion zillion years.
There is no such number as a zillion. You can refer here for the real names of numbers: Names of large numbers - Wikipedia . If you had actually calculated that "probability", you would have come up with an actual number, not meaningless jibberish.
Please stop trying to bullshit us. Go ahead and provide the quotes from your sources that Dr. Adequate keeps requesting.
1 hr = 60 min

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 Message 96 by dkroemer, posted 05-18-2010 8:10 AM dkroemer has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5952
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 160 of 419 (561049)
05-18-2010 3:07 PM
Reply to: Message 148 by dkroemer
05-18-2010 2:19 PM


Re: and yet, curiously, it is still explained by evolution ...
Question: How long would it take a computer to generate "to be or not to be" by producing 18 letters and spaces randomly? Answer: Millions of years.
If you take the creation-ex-nihilo single-step-selection approach, yes. But not if you take life's cumulative-selection approach. As has been pointed out to you repeatedly. Why are you willfully ignoring that simple fact?
How does life create proteins? Are you going to try to claim that each of millions of proteins your body produces on a regular basis each have to fall together randomly? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. Are you going to try to claim that for life to produce a new protein, that entire protein must all fall together randomly? I would hope not, because that would also be ridiculous; rather, a previously existing protein is modified. Cumulative selection, not single-step creation-ex-nihilo selection.
Since life obviously does not use your single-step selection approach, why do you keep insisting that life must? That's ridiculous.

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 Message 148 by dkroemer, posted 05-18-2010 2:19 PM dkroemer has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5952
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 164 of 419 (561054)
05-18-2010 3:44 PM
Reply to: Message 157 by dkroemer
05-18-2010 2:34 PM


Re: and yet, curiously, it is still explained by evolution ...
OK, I just wasted 10 minutes watching your film that I could have put to far better use working on a Navy course. At least you've also presented almost all of it in this thread, so your errors and misconceptions have been pointed out to you, even though you choose to ignore those responses.
Now it's your turn to watch that 1 hr video.
BTW, what is your doctorate in? Obviously not in science and likely not in philosophy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 157 by dkroemer, posted 05-18-2010 2:34 PM dkroemer has not replied

Replies to this message:
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