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Lynne Leichtfuss
Trad climber
Will know soon
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:12pm PT
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Yeah, how dare you say Fet's body is Gross. (it isn't is it, Fet ?:DD)
Did no one read jstan's jokes ? They are Hilarious !!!!! Thanks for posting those, Guy !!! lynne
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WandaFuca
Social climber
From the gettin' place
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:17pm PT
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HOYLE'S FALLACY
from Wikipedia
Hoyle's fallacy is based on arguments most popular in the 1920s before the modern evolutionary synthesis, and is rejected by all evolutionary biologists.
The fallacy begins by (correctly) demonstrating that the search space containing some particular solution (e.g. humans, working cells, the eye) is enormous, something which is not contentious.
The fallacy occurs when the conclusion is drawn that the enormity of the search space implies that natural selection could not have located the solution. Sometimes Borel's Law, which states that very unlikely events do not occur, is invoked to justify the final step, although the fallacy which relates to the vanishing of the probability itself, has already been committed by this stage.
Hoyle's formulation is a rehashing of the older infinite monkey theorem, but applied to cellular biochemistry instead of the works of William Shakespeare.
The fallacy claims that the probability that a protein molecule could achieve a functional sequence of amino acids is too low to be realised by chance alone. Hoyle calculated this as being comparable to the probability that a tornado could sweep through a junkyard and randomly assemble a Boeing 747.
According to Ian Musgrave in Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations:
These people, including Fred, have committed one or more of the following errors:
1. They calculate the probability of the formation of a "modern" protein, or even a complete bacterium with all "modern" proteins, by random events. This is not the abiogenesis theory at all.
2. They assume that there is a fixed number of proteins, with fixed sequences for each protein, that are required for life.
3. They calculate the probability of sequential trials, rather than simultaneous trials.
4. They misunderstand what is meant by a probability calculation.
5. They seriously underestimate the number of functional enzymes/ribozymes present in a group of random sequences.
Hoyle's fallacy is rejected by all evolutionary biologists, since "no biologist imagines that complex structures arise in a single step."
Hoyle's argument is a mainstay of creationist, intelligent design, orthogenetic and other criticisms of evolution. It has been labeled a fallacy by, amongst others, Richard Dawkins, principally in his two books The Blind Watchmaker and Climbing Mount Improbable. He has expanded the argument in The God Delusion, calling it the Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit.
The modern evolutionary synthesis explains how complex structures evolve by analysing the required intermediate steps. It is the intermediate steps that are omitted in creationist arguments, which is the cause of the over-estimating of the improbability of the entire process.
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GOclimb
Trad climber
Boston, MA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:22pm PT
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Cragman - the plants and animals you see around you were those that self-selected to be able to live in this world.
No such chance was given to the plants and animals in Bioshphere II.
If you left the place sealed and alone, all but a few species would probably die. In other words, they would self-select for the environment. Given enough time (maybe only tens or hundreds of years in the case of microbes) some would probably evolve to fill in niches in the environment that are unoccupied.
See how this works? It's actually not so hard to understand.
GO
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MH2
climber
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:24pm PT
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Gobee sez
If YOUR God then you get to make up the rules!
It isn't that hard to do:
The Rules
For a space that is 'populated':
Each cell with one or no neighbors dies, as if by loneliness.
Each cell with four or more neighbors dies, as if by overpopulation.
Each cell with two or three neighbors survives.
For a space that is 'empty' or 'unpopulated'
Each cell with three neighbors becomes populated.
Those rules could generate this whole discussion, given enough space and time, and we could perhaps be embedded in a physical world quite different from the one we experience, though it doesn't seem likely.
Interestingly from a perspective Largo used, although the cellular automaton above is completely deterministic when run forward, the previous states can't be fully derived from the current state.
And to be safe, Thank God for the dose of absurdity from jstan.
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WandaFuca
Social climber
From the gettin' place
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:24pm PT
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You are an as#@&%e.
Children don't like it when you tug on their security blankets.
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midarockjock
climber
USA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:29pm PT
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GOclimb,
do you have any verifiable records for pinus collections from species
somehow growing naturally above or just at the alpine tree limit of the
species?
I read in the past some of these were beneficial for the lumber industry
to produce accelerated growth with lumber needed due to past clear cutting?
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GOclimb
Trad climber
Boston, MA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:30pm PT
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Another fallacy is exposed when you realize the absurdity of asking what the probability of finding life *exactly* as it is today, formed by evolution. Of course, assuming evolution is correct, the probability of going from early life to exactly what you see here is approximately zero! Does that mean it didn't happen?! No, obviously. What it means is that it could have happened in this, or any number of other ways. And the probability of *that* is exactly one.
GO
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GOclimb
Trad climber
Boston, MA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:33pm PT
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GOclimb,
do you have any verifiable records for pinus collections from species
somehow growing naturally above the alpine tree limit of the species?
I read in the past some these were beneficial for the lumber industry
to produce accelerated growth with lumber needed due to past clear cutting?
??? Nope, never heard of it, why?
GO
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:33pm PT
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Midarock you nailed it, by far my favorite Cream song, though, 'Sunshine' and 'Pressed Rat and Warthog' are there as well.
Skipt, that is a very 'half empty' sort of view, there's stacks of better ways to say it, without rancor, even.
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midarockjock
climber
USA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:36pm PT
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GOclimb,
Yes true!
Correct.
Correct.
What? I probably disagree.
It had something to do with another post of yours.
Btw, One of my computer science teachers taught that
we as programmers know truth because it's either 1 or false
0. I disagree with him.
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MH2
climber
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:38pm PT
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WandaFuca:
The modern evolutionary synthesis explains how complex structures evolve by analysing the required intermediate steps.
Tries to explain, because it is the route to go.
However, a biochemist may tell you, as one did me, that even if the primordial soup got as far as DNA complexes and RNA complexes there is a HUGE step from there to any kind of interacting group of molecules which would reproduce itself so that evolution could take over from what chance had started.
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GOclimb
Trad climber
Boston, MA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:43pm PT
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Cragman wrote: GOclimb "Self selected?"
Sounds pretty wack to me; plants choosing to be there or not.
Not at all. Look, let's say a plant lives near a stream in a field. A seed from the plant falls into the stream, and is carried miles away, into a forest, where it falls into fertile soil.
What happens? That depends on the nature of the plant. It may grow for a season or two and then die for lack of light. It may thrive far better in its new environment than it did in the old one, displacing "native" plants. Or it may fail to grow at all. All this based on the simple nature of the plant.
That's what's meant by self-selecting. In a given environment, a creature may thrive or die.
Unlike God - we're not all-knowing. We can't just create an insta-world and make it thrive. IIRC, the two main problems they discovered with that experiment were that the cement they made it out of soaked up O2, and the microbes in the soil outgassed at levels unsustainable for the environment to absorb.
So they didn't get it right. But they learned! And that's well worth it, IMO.
GO
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:45pm PT
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I better clean out my fridge!
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:47pm PT
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that's 'billions' of years Fattrad, not millions, but good point....
the superstisuos tend to have little appreciation of geologic time.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:49pm PT
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"you ever come home after a tour, and everything in your refrigerator is like, a science experiment?" Tom Waits.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:52pm PT
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Well Lynne, my body is grosser than it was 20 years ago!
And of course everything died off in Biosphere. I theorize suicide since Pauly Shore and one of the lame Baldwins were there.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:52pm PT
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Go-
Thanks for all the illustrations. I understand the question now but it's 4 am and I need some sleep.
I'll give it another try in the morning.
jstan-
Thanks for a good laugh just before I called it quits for the night.
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Brian Hench
Trad climber
Anaheim, CA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 02:58pm PT
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But GoClimb, where did that original plant that produced the very first seed come from?
It evolved from a plant that produced a spore.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Oct 14, 2009 - 03:22pm PT
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Body Snatchers, no doubt?
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