Can all life be descended from a single-celled organisim?

To know the probability of something happening, don't you have to know how it happened first?

When each generation averages about 100 mutations, how many generations do you think it would take to explain the diversity of life?

 

So far, so good.

When individuals will pass mutations along to about half of their offspring, the probability of a beneficial mutation taking over the species is easily calculated. http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/5/28/1279

When there are numerous examples of species reproducing with other species with a different number of chromosomes, why do you think this is a problem?

 

True and a good question.

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/genetics.html

The above goes through some of the calculations. It points out that most mutations are irrelevant because they occur in unimportant parts of the DNA or are benign. Of the remainder, most mutations are harmful to the individual, a small number of mutations are beneficial to some degree (his number is 1000 harmful to 1 beneficial).

Note that it uses things such as "a typical individual with 350 extra beneficial mutations" to get useful results.

This one has http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/rates.html "Beneficial mutations occur every 7 - 10 years on the average, leading to 1 - 2 generations per year. During the bursts of evolution, evolution would occur about 100 times this fast, which means 100 times as many beneficial mutations. This requires 100-200 generations per year."

How many mutations does it take? I searched on "mutations to create an eye" and found this http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-random-mutations/ and although its written to support evolution, it reads more like the author is hopefull that it works, not that it actually works.

I read several other papers, none are very good, all have a lot of hand-waving and pulling numbers out of thin air.

To make it work, they have to use large numbers which violate their basic claims regarding the number of mutations.

I don't think anybody has a good handle on the probability, there are so many unknowns. And that is not a good sign for evolution.

 

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_16 explains your 4 items.

Migration and genetic drift do not create new species or add new traits in a species, they simple cull members of the existing species with existing bad traits. Natural selection does the same. And these 3 are also environmentally dependent - traits that give a benefit to an individual in a particular environment are accented.

Only mutation actually changes the species, it adds new traits to the species. I can see that once a mutation occurs then the other 3 effects (migration, genetic drift, natural selection) come into play to weed out the mutation or preserve it. When a random mutation occurs, then these other 3 processes will either select the mutation because it is beneficial in that particular environment, or it will be eliminated.

 

http://biology.stackexchange.com/qu...ent-number-of-chromosomes-that-can-interbreed
https://malaysia.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090920072232AAqFEfb
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080728051731AA2IHDr

Not great sources but they agree with your statement. If animals are in the same family and are "closely related" they can interbreed even though the number of chromosomes are slightly different. Many of their offspring seem to be sterile or have other negative issues.

 

That is called mutationism.
Yeah, evolutionists tend to believe that evolution works by mutations and natural selection decides which one would live and die out. This would guide the evolutionary process to incorporate only good mutations.
This doesn't make sense to me though, since mutations are accidents, but I guess natural selection is supposed to select the good mutations to change the species for the better. However, not all agree evolution works this way(or that the theory of evolution is true at all).

 

Eyes exist in many different forms and so do other sensory organs.

If you go back to primitive multicellular organisms floating in the sea and you consider a a mutation that allowed one of the cells to be able to detect the difference between light and dark. Now this organism discovers that there is more food where there is light and less where there is dark so it follows the light and survives and passes on this beneficial mutation. This light sensitive cell then mutates to detect colors and that enables the organism to choose between types of food that are good versus bad.

The steps were small and incremental but you only have to look at flowers that follow the sun to appreciate that they have not only light sensitive cells but also the ability to communicate to other cells so as to turn the plant to optimize the use of sunlight.

Insects have multiple eyes to detect movement whereas reptiles and mammals have developed muscles to move their eyes. The adaption of a cell to form a focusing lense is yet another survival advantage.

Eyes did not happen all at once and just by looking at the types of light sensitive cells that we see in nature we can see how they must have evolved over billions of years.

 

I know the story behind the development of eyes. That's why I mentioned it - I read some of the papers explaining the evolution of the eye. The long stream of mutations required to develop the eye is quite improbable, add in the claim that the eye developed independently in various species and it is beyond belief. Remember, 1000 bad mutations for every 1 beneficial mutation, and bad mutations often end up killing the individual.

 

How/Why is it "improbable."
Creationists oft throw out huge numbers without taking into account the huge amount of chances/trials/years.
In this case, many species have gone extinct - perhaps infintely more than now exist, or derived from extinct ones.
What we do have is a chain of Evidence pointing TO evolution of the eye. (and everything else)

Winning Mega is "improbable" unless you buy 250 million tickets... after/above which it becomes Probable.
"improbable" is your Spin withOut basis.
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Scientists debating specific mechanisms within evolution is not unusual and does not invalidate the theory.
The scientific method is not meant to prove something true, but rather, false.
Current status? The theory of evolution has never been falsified.

 

But you believe the fairy story of the magical skybully that doesn't exist instead?

There is hard physical evidence for the existence of both mutations and eyes in all their varied forms.

There is zero evidence for your magical skybully.

Proven peer reviewed scientific knowledge is way more beneficial than stone age fairy stories.

 

How does it not make sense? Whether the mutations are accidents or not, if they improve the organism's ability to survive, then that organism is more likely to have offspring which will carry that same mutation. Scientists at NASA have even used the same technique to design satellite antennas.

 

Your right Biogenesis happened all over the planet and some took and some didn't, the odds of one event with one cell being it is very remote and likely impossible. The only common thing is carbon based life started and not silicon or some other process and that process is dominant.

 

From what I have read, that is true.

 

See post #28. Read the linked papers. The bottom line is that for evolution to work, huge numbers (which violate the observed data in the papers) are required. The key number is that of all mutations, most are benign, of the remainder the ratio of harmful to beneficial is 1,000 to 1, and harmful mutations generally kill the individual.

 

GIBRISH from a Creationist Clown.
A quick Google search of the article author.
And that IS an article NOT a published/vetted/peer-reviewed scientific paper.
He's a religionist Clown who's a Crackpot on geology and radio Isotopic dating as well.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Dav...ed&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

....
Dr. David Plaisted Documents 50 Million Protestants Killed By The ...
www2.worldviewweekend.com/.../dr-david-plaisted-documents-50-million-protestant...
Jan 22, 2012 - Dr. David Plaisted Documents 50 Million Protestants Killed By The Church of Rome During the 600 Years of the Inquisition. For two or three ...

David Plaisted - Creation Science Hall of Fame Creation Science Hall ...
creationsciencehalloffame.org/defenses/ark-flood/global-flood-peer.../david-plaisted/
David Plaisted, PhD, is a professor of computer science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

David Plaisted's not so amusing geological Misinterpretations
noanswersingenesis.org.au/plaisted_not_amusing_henke.htm
by KR Henke - ‎Related articles
Dr. David Plaisted is a computer scientist and creationist critic of orthodox geology, ... At Musings on Geology Dr. Plaisted attempts to describe the Paleozoic and

Comments on "The Radiometric Dating Game" - Part 1
www.tim-thompson.com/plaisted-review.html
Dr. David Plaisted has written a "Critique" of radiometric dating, which appears on the The True.Origin Archive. He claims on p. 2 (the page numbers for Dr.
...​

For some REAL numbers I suggest some non-Cherry-Picked googling
https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&...DLyYKHXBRB44QPAgD#hl=en&nfpr=1&q=odds+of+life

next
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First, before you go off and try to pick a fight where none exists, this is not my field, I have a little interest in it, but I am curious about it. I normally avoid these threads because they typically degenerate into a lot of BS. This one so far has been different - its been polite, I've learned some things about evolution. As I posted previously, I googled a phrase and read the first few links from the search - I did not cherry pick, and read more than the Plaisted papers.

So, if you have something to add to a discussion (and so far this has been a decent, polite discussion), then do so.

If you want to go off on a name calling rant about how religion sucks and be counterproductive, I'm not going to read your posts. Here is your chance to actually educate people, don't blow it.

***

I went to your "REAL" google search link, looked at most of them on the first page. Not much to them, one had actual numbers (http://evolutionfaq.com/articles/probability-life), all deal with the probability of life developing on earth (or any planet), which isn't really what the discussion is about.


The one with some numbers had this: http://evolutionfaq.com/articles/probability-life

For example, the simplest theorized self-replicating peptide is only 32 amino acids long. The probability of it forming randomly, in sequential trials, is approximately 1 in 10^40, which is much more likely than the 1 in 10^390 claim creationists often cite.

Though, to be fair, 10^40 is still a very large number. It would still take an incredibly large number of sequential trials before the peptide would form. But remember that in the prebiotic oceans of the early Earth, there would be billions of trials taking place simultaneously as the oceans, rich in amino acids, were continuously churned by the tidal forces of the moon and the harsh weather conditions of the Earth.

In fact, if we assume the volume of the oceans were 1024 liters, and the amino acid concentration was 10-6M (which is actually very dilute), then almost 10^31 self-replicating peptides would form in under a year, let alone millions of years. So, even given the difficult chances of 1 in 10^40, the first stages of abiogenesis could have started very quickly indeed.​

OK, so what is the probability that the first stage would occur, given a chance of 1 in 10^40 and 10^31 attempts (1 years worth of attempts) ? The chance of it NOT occurring after 10^31 attempts is (1 - 10^40) to the power of 10^31, which using a series expansion is about 1 - 10^9, or the chance of that first stage not occurring in 1 year is 99.9999999%.

After 1 billion years, the chance of that first stage occurring is 63%, so there is a good chance that first step occurs in 1 billion years - but that's the first step of many many steps to reach the diversity of life on earth today. Science says the earth is 6 billion years old, so its not looking good for evolution.

That's why evolution doesn't make sense.

 

I am going to walk to the beach and pick up a grain of sand. Before I do it, your chances of picking the grain of sand I choose is unfathomable. Once I do pick though, the probability question is moot. There is nothing in your statistics about life being formed somewhere in space and landing here on a comet or asteroid is there? So, the bottom line is that life is here, it started somewhere and evolution explains how it grew into the various life forms we see today and in the fossil record. Unless you have another probable hypothesis that does not involve an even less likely origin (a super being outside of time, space and natural laws), I am going with what we know and can postulate.

 

Yes, life is here so it did happen. That's not the question, the question is how did it happen? And that can be addressed in various ways, one being the probability that a particular process would result in life (or evolution).

If a hypothesis says the chance is zero, then that hypothesis can be discarded.

You just used that reasoning when you decided the chance of God creating life was zero.

 

Science does not say that, the Earth as about 4.5 Billion years old and arbitrary numbers cannot possible define probability chances of either cell formation or number or chemical interaction. Think of a beach that is 1000 miles long, on this beach are 1000 sand grains dyed neon blue. You have a years to find one of those grains and the waves are 10 ft. tall.

Will you find one?

 

Your answer doesn't jibe with the text you posted.
You posted the odds of aboigenesis which is, at 63% after 1 billion years, PROBABLE.
and infinitely higher after 2 Billion Years .. Very PROBABLE.
After 3-5 Billion years, Ultra Highly Probable.

Once life starts, 'evolution' can and demonstrably DID happen afterwords. Slow at first, then quickly expanding in several environmentally diverse epochs.

ALL creatures now extant have transitional fossil ancestors, some have many, and they in turn can be traced back to yet previous ones, physically and genetically.
Especially... US.
Most creatures, including humans (Wisdom Teeeth, appendix, Coccyx/Tail) also have (mostly useless) Anatomical Remnants of their ancestors, which is explained ONLY by Common descent/Evolution.

ALL evidence points to evolution and nothing but.
It's so overwhelming, the only possible Burp for god/creation is that 'he' is trying to fool us (or test our faith) by Planting all that Evidence.
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On the first bold:
Let's not forget that there are a billion trillion stars in the universe (that's 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). Some percentage of these stars have planets and some planets have significant moons. Life could have started on many one of those. Obviously, we humans would be where things worked, not where things failed.

So, earth is just a planet where it worked. And, when considering odds of life one must consider all the places where life could be - not just this one planet.

On the second bold:
The time it took for first life to form is not related to the time it has taken for earth to be populated by the life forms we have today since the processes are not the same.

Sexual reproduction began about 1.1 billion years ago in life forms that approximate yeast. The theory of evolution holds that the sexually reproducing life forms we see today (including humans) all arose in that period of time - leaving time between abiogenesis and the advent of sexual reproduction.

 

The answer is that after 1 Billion years, the probability of just ONE step in evolution occurring is 63%. That's the numbers from your link - not my numbers, not a creationist source. There are zillions of steps to go after that one step, and each of those zillions of steps is as unlikely as the first. And there are only 6 Billion years at most for those steps to occur and create the diverse system of today.

Those types of numbers are consistent with what the Plaisted papers used, so you might want to rethink your attitude about Plaisted. Maybe he is correct - it certainly seems his numbers and the numbers from evolutionists are in agreement.

The fact that life does exist, but it seems so improbable (so much it seems impossible) for it to have occurred via evolution, is a strong clue that either evolution is not the answer or people just don't understand how the world works. Maybe there are aspects which are unknown and mutations occur faster or there are biological processes at work which are not understood, resulting in a faster rate of evolution. Maybe evolution is just wrong.

Simply because evolution is the only current idea does not automatically make the hypothesis correct. The "how" of evolution seems to be completely missing.

 

Evolution has what any good scientific claim has,...evidence, and lots of it.
It's supported by a wide range of observations throughout the fields of genetics, anatomy, ecology, animal behavior, paleontology, and others.
If you wish to challenge the theory of evolution, you must address that evidence. You must show that the evidence is either wrong or irrelevant or that it fits another theory better. Of course, to do this, you must know both the theory and the evidence.

 

You have the scientific method backwards. The theory must explain all issues - if it fails one aspect then the theory fails and must be modified or rejected.

I do no understand all those subjects, I do not understand all the evidence related to evolution - but I do not need to understand all of it. And I am not interested in spending more than a passing amount of time on evolution, its just not that important to me. But I do understand mathematics and probability and statistics, and the rate of evolution seems to be a glaring flaw in the evolution theory.

It does not matter how much evidence exists for the current evolution theory, if it takes 1 Billion years for one step of the process, then the theory of evolution has a major potentially fatal flaw.