Comment on Bringing the Real World to Genesis: Why Evolution is an Idea that Won’t Die—IV [A Review] by Sean Pitman.
I would appreciate your views on the probability of only levorotatory (left-handed) stereo enantiomers of almost all of the amino acids found in living systems developing purely by chance. I’ve never heard of any neo-Darwinist taking on this one as far as origins goes. Have you?
I have come across a few feeble attempts to explain this most interesting observation. However, if you’re going to ignore the overwhelming statistical problems of the informational complexity required to put together very complex machines from scratch, using only mindless naturalistic mechanisms, these other statistical problems aren’t going to phase you much.
As an aside, Stephen Meyer covers many of these issues in his book, “Signature in the Cell.”
And of course, how can DNA develop independently of proteins or proteins develop independently of DNA? Don’t they both have to be in existence concurrently?
Yes, its the classic “chicken or the egg?” paradox. I discuss this particular problem in more detail here:
http://www.detectingdesign.com/abiogenesis.html
Not to mention, what is the probability of correctly functioning proteins, which are generally many hundreds or thousands of amino acid building blocks long, if only a single amino acid is out of place? All biologists, ID or Darwinists (neo- or otherwise), also need to be honest staticticians!
Protein-based systems generally aren’t this rigid. They allow from some flexiblity of sequence changes without a significant or complete loss of original function. However, there is a minimum degree of specificity that is required for all protein-based systems to achieve a particular type of function. The odds that qualitatively novel beneficial protein-based systems will be discovered in the vastness of sequence space via random mutations are very very unlikely this side of a practical eternity of time once one starts to consider systems that have a minimum requirement of more than 1000 specifically arranged amino acid residues.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
Bringing the Real World to Genesis: Why Evolution is an Idea that Won’t Die—IV [A Review]
My bad. I’d simply assumed that someone who has long argued for the idea that life has existed and evolved on the planet, in a stepwise manner of small gradations over billions of years via random mutations and natural selection, must be a believer in the fundamental concepts of neo-Darwinism…
Now, you may want to throw a bit of theism into the mix here and there, but where have you ever pointed to any feature of life on this planet and said, “Now there’s the Signature of God!” Rather, it seems to me like you have consistently challenged the Seventh-day Adventist position on a literal seven-day creation week within which God created all life on this planet within recent history. You have also consistently challenged the notion that the Biblical story of a Noachian Flood was anything more than a local regional flood. You have even compared belief in such concepts as a literal creation week or a truly worldwide Noachian Flood to belonging to the Flat Earth Society.
I find it rather difficult, then, to see the difference between your arguments and those that would be forwarded by any ardent neo-Darwinist… and I think most others familiar with your position would agree with me (to include those who frequent the Spectrum blog).
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Bringing the Real World to Genesis: Why Evolution is an Idea that Won’t Die—IV [A Review]
I sometimes quote internet articles because they are generally accessible by a general audience (often I reference both generally accessible articles of interest as well as the primary article). In any case, I do have access to most of the original papers I reference. Beyond this, one can in fact get a very very good idea as to the science, or lack thereof, beyond certain fundamental claims of Darwinism. One need not have read every single paper on the topic to understand the very clear limits of the Darwinian mechanism of RM/NS. How is that? Because, the published papers in literature on the topic are highly redundant, saying the very same thing over and over again. Very quickly one is able to pick up on a pattern that established the potential and limits of RM/NS quite nicely.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Bringing the Real World to Genesis: Why Evolution is an Idea that Won’t Die—IV [A Review]
I do have university access…
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Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!
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Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…
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Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…
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Where did I “gloss over it”?
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I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.
Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).
Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.
