43 thoughts on “Open thread for Stats meets Evolution”

  3. Over at UD, the admirable RDFish opines:

    Hi Zachriel,

    So refreshing! I’ve been posting on ID/Evo boards on and off for more than a decade, and this is the first time someone challenged my skepticism about evolutionary theory!

    This seems like a case of the relativity of wrong. We often hear it said that the Solar System formed from the gravitational collapse of a molecular cloud, but it turns out that gravity alone is not sufficient to explain the form of the Solar System. Nonetheless, pointing to gravity is a reasonable first-order explanation, even if it is “fundamentally incomplete”.

    I disagree: I think it would be like saying that Newtonian mechanics explained the precession of the perihelion of Mercury – which it doesn’t at all, because it is fundamentally incomplete.

    I think that without some other sort of constraints on variation that we don’t understand, no combination of selection, drift, transfer, or anything else anyone has thought of could find the sorts of intricate functional configurations we see biological systems in anywhere near the number of trials available on this planet over just billions of years. Not by a many-orders longshot. I could be wrong about this of course, but it’s certainly not something that should be accepted on the basis of current evidence. Computer simulations should be able to provide evidence that mechanisms of complexity comparable to biological organisms could evolve with the time and populations available; they do not.

    Cheers,
    RDFish/AIGuy

    Irreducible Complexity: the primordial condition of biology

    I thought about starting an OP on this, but this will do.

    It connects to something I’ve argued for a long time. Computer simulations can model the mathematics of selection and drift, but they cannot simulate biology, because we cannot model chemistry. Same for brains.

  4. petrushka,

    I’ve been following the thread. Just succumbing for a second to peanut gallery temptation, I’m almost feeling sorry for Upright Biped. All that work on producing an excellent web layout and he was just unable to deliver on the content. His “argument” seems to have shrunk to a Sherlock Holmes fallacy on OoL

  6. Alan Fox: shrunk to a Sherlock Holmes fallacy on OoL

    ID IS the Sherlock Holmes fallacy.

    The problem with reductionism and materialism and physicialism (the straw man versions) is that they assume we have fully and correctly modeled chemistry and physics and can say what is possible and what is impossible.

  7. Your position may be able to explain donuts, but it can’t explain donuts and coffee!

    Donuts and coffee are IC!

    What do you have in mind for this thread, lol?

  10. Alan Fox:
    petrushka,

    I’ve been following the thread. Just succumbing for a second to peanut gallery temptation, I’m almost feeling sorry for Upright Biped. All that work on producing an excellent web layout and he was just unable to deliver on the content. His “argument” seems to have shrunk to a Sherlock Holmes fallacy on OoL

    That’s only an opinion that UB was unable to deliver on the content.

    When asked about the alleged theory of evolution you have always failed to deliver on the content. OoL? Same thing- total lack of content. People in glass houses…

  11. petrushka,

    Unfortunately the alleged mathematics of selection and drift and the reality of natural selection and drift, are two different things.

  12. hotshoe_: Oh, but that show is my first and only favorite! I’ve literally never been a fan of anything.But I am now, have been since S3 aired on PBS (two hell years ago).

    Seems a shame to waste such a pinnacle of entertainment on the name of an informal fallacy.

    Keep in mind the fallacy is generally committed by and applied to people who think they are as smart as and are engaging in the same behavior as Holmes, not by Sherlock Holmes himself. The fallacy is committed when one thinks they can deduce *anything* and don’t constrain their list of improbabilities by specific material parameters.

  16. Mung:
    Evolution is statistically impossible. The numbers don’t lie.

    But Creationists who make up the bogus numbers lie all the time.

  18. phoodoo:
    “Did you just post an abstract from a study after complaining about abstracts (an article about an abstract) that other people posted (not me!) and then whine that I said the abstract didn’t say what you claimed (and I was of course right)?

    Can I just point out here that you are such a fucking shithead, that you make people who are merely dipshits seem brilliant?

    Now what about the Chimps eating other people’s babies, shithead???”

    Question- Why was this post removed, whilst the meaningless shit posts from Richard are allowed to stay?Who decides this?

    Why are you so angry phoodoo? What ha
    gotten god’s little soldier so worked up?

  19. Rumraket,

    Go and read the thread he started where he critiqued a paper … But only read the abstract. KeithS baits then dismantles him. Hilarity!

  21. Mung:
    Evolution is statistically impossible. The numbers don’t lie.

    Figures never lie, but liars sure do figure.

  26. Mung:
    It’s a fact. All mathematicians agree.

    That’s nice. The book has two authors, so it hardly qualifies as all mathematicians. Also, it’s kind of hard to verify your claim if since the book is from 1986 and the contents are not freely available online.

    So it is your contention that the contents of that book proves that evolution is statistically impossible and that all mathematicians agree? I’ll stick my neck out right now and call bullshit. That means if I’m wrong I’ll admit it. Will you do the same?

  27. Well Mung. Would it be possible for you to perhaps reproduce one of those mathematical arguments here?

  28. Rumraket,

    Inadequacies of neo-Darwinian evolution as a scientific theory / Murray Eden —
    How to formulate mathematically problems of rate of evolution? / Stanislaw M. Ulam —
    Mathematical optimization : are there abstract limits on natural selection? / William Bossert —
    Evolutionary challenges to the mathematical interpretation of evolution / Ernst Mayr —
    The problems of vicarious selection / George Wald —
    Algorithms and the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution / Marcel P. Schützenberger —
    The principle of historicity in evolution / Richard C. Lewontin —
    Summary discussion / C.H. Waddington —
    Post-conference comments. Some ecobehavioral problems to mathematical analysis of evolution / Walter E. Howard ; Comments on mathematical challenges to the neo-Darwinian concept of evolution / Alex Fraser —
    Preliminary working papers. Inadequacies of neo-Darwinian evolution as a scientific theory / Murray Eden ; The principle of archetypes in evolution / C.H. Waddington ; Comments on the preliminary working papers of Eden and Waddington / Sewall Wright ; Algorithms and the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution / Marcel P. Schützenberger ; Indications of order in a model of prebiotic protein-like polymer / S.W. Fox and T. Nakashima ; On some practical consequences of the existence of evolution laws in physical chemistry of energetically open systems / R. Buvet ; L’évolution considerée par un botaniste-cytologiste / Pierre Gavaudan.

    Bunch of lightweights, I agree.

  31. Mung:
    Rumraket,

    (snip)

    Bunch of lightweights, I agree.

    What YEC website did you copy that list from Mung? The most recent article on there was published in 1967.

    That certainly explains why you’re so up to date on current evolutionary theory. You’re the smartest Creationist there is Mung, don’t let anyone tell you differently.

  32. Mung:
    Rumraket,

    Inadequacies of neo-Darwinian evolution as a scientific theory / Murray Eden —
    How to formulate mathematically problems of rate of evolution? / Stanislaw M. Ulam —
    Mathematical optimization : are there abstract limits on natural selection? / William Bossert —
    Evolutionary challenges to the mathematical interpretation of evolution / Ernst Mayr —
    The problems of vicarious selection / George Wald —
    Algorithms and the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution / Marcel P. Schützenberger —
    The principle of historicity in evolution / Richard C. Lewontin —
    Summary discussion / C.H. Waddington —
    Post-conference comments. Some ecobehavioral problems to mathematical analysis of evolution / Walter E. Howard ; Comments on mathematical challenges to the neo-Darwinian concept of evolution / Alex Fraser —
    Preliminary working papers. Inadequacies of neo-Darwinian evolution as a scientific theory / Murray Eden ; The principle of archetypes in evolution / C.H. Waddington ; Comments on the preliminary working papers of Eden and Waddington / Sewall Wright ; Algorithms and the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution / Marcel P. Schützenberger ; Indications of order in a model of prebiotic protein-like polymer / S.W. Fox and T. Nakashima ; On some practical consequences of the existence of evolution laws in physical chemistry of energetically open systems / R. Buvet ; L’évolution considerée par un botaniste-cytologiste / Pierre Gavaudan.

    Bunch of lightweights, I agree.

    Seriously, the utterly debunked Wistar conference is your “reference” to show evolution is statistically impossible?

    You are aware, are you not, that this conference was a massive embarassment for the physicists, engineers and mathematicians who thought they understood biology? Some of the purported mathematical issues they brought up were, unknown to them, solved 40 years before.

  33. Mung,

    Noted mathematician Henry Morris:

    the successful production of a 200-component functioning organism requires, at least, 200 successive, successful such “mutations,” each of which is highly unlikely. Even evolutionists recognize that true mutations are very rare, and beneficial mutations are extremely rare—not more than one out of a thousand mutations are beneficial, at the very most.

    But let us give the evolutionist the benefit of every consideration. Assume that, at each mutational step, there is equally as much chance for it to be good as bad. Thus, the probability for the success of each mutation is assumed to be one out of two, or one-half. Elementary statistical theory shows that the probability of 200 successive mutations being successful is then (½)200, or one chance out of 10^60.

    Nope, can’t see a single flaw in that reasoning! There is no mechanism by which advantageous mutations can be incrementally preserved in an evolutionary system. Not one. Evolution is indeed undone; amazing how it lumbers on under such fatal blows.

    Perhaps he means OoL. But no, he’s talking of mutations and adaptation.

  36. Mung: Brilliant response. worldcat is a YEC site. Adapa sez so.

    Doesn’t change the fact those “evolution doubting” articles are all almost 50 years old. But I wouldn’t expect a brilliant Creationist spokesman like you to keep up with the current literature.

  39. Mung:
    I can go back further than 1966 if you like.

    I’d much prefer you decided to show some of that statistics you claim shows evolution to be impossible.

  40. Mung? You wouldn’t be just linking a book the contents of which you didn’t even read, right?

  41. Rumraket: Mung? You wouldn’t be just linking a book the contents of which you didn’t even read, right?

    I have not read the book, but I do have the book. I could be the only one posting here at TSZ that actually has a copy in his possession. I’m guessing that Richardthughes doesn’t. And that you don’t.

  42. Mung: I have not read the book, but I do have the book. I could be the only one posting here at TSZ that actually has a copy in his possession. I’m guessing that Richardthughes doesn’t. And that you don’t.

    So, bring the stats then?

  43. Hey Mung, any stats forthcoming?

    Also, so I was right. You posted about something you actually have no idea whether is correct. You own a book you haven’t read, but you believe it’s contents prove evolution is statistically impossible.

    Can I laugh now? I will laugh.

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