Re: [asa] The Multiverse - Physics or Metaphysics?

On 9/8/07, rpaulmason@juno.com <rpaulmason@juno.com> wrote:
> Is real science imagining some RNA world that doesn't exist and even if it could it would have to
> convert to DNA. So we need to deal with the complex DNA code, it's replication and protein
> synthesis need to all been i place for life to go on. There are not just 2 proteins but doesn't that
> need to be the right shape just to translate genes into proteins. Without that there is no
> replication, no life to select.

A good question. The RNA world as it likely has existed in the past,
does not exist other than in remnants of RNA. RNA and DNA code are
equally complex, 4 bases. In fact, as many researchers of RNA have
shown, RNA forms exquisite 'network's which form a scale free network
with all the properties thereof. Such as most any RNA structure is
'close' to any other 'RNA' structure and can be connected via a string
of neutral mutations and one or more non neutral mutations. RNA
networks are very amenable to evolution. To suggest that life requires
protein synthesis is a somewhat ad hoc definition of life. All that is
needed is replication (imperfect) with variation and selection at
earlier stages.
The RNA world is not just a figment of science's imaginations, it is a
very real possibility based on many different findings.

> RNA or any replicating molecule has to eventually get to DNA that has the information to make
> proteins that help it replicate itself and and . The odds of getting just two genes that code for two
> proteins to work together seem to exceed what is possible with just 10 to the 115th rolls of the
> dice so to speak. To get two protein that fit together or work together -
> a protein can be 100 to over 10,000 amino acids long - 2 proteins at 100 each - there are over
> 10 to the 200th different ways to arrange those amino acids. Remember there are only 10 to teh
> 115th events in all time - even if every one of them was a different configuration 10 to the 115th
> only tests a small number of them. It would be hard to get even one protein of 100 that was f
> unctional.

Again, that is just plain wrong, man 100 aminoacid proteins are
'functional' in the sense that they properly fold. But noone is
suggesting that these proteins formed in a random fashion so we can
quickl reject this simplistic view of protein evolution. Yes, there
are many ways to arrange the codons in DNA leading to many different
proteins but that is not really the argument, the question is can we
explain this diversity using simple processes of evolution. Can we
explain the existence of complexity and information in the genome with
processes of variation and selection, and the answer is yes.

> It's just like language - it's impossible to get even two lines of sensible text by chance - 100
> letters or so exceed the 10 to the 115th = impossible.

Which is why your argument is fallacious. Noone is arguing that
proteins, certainly of that length, arose by pure chance alone.

I am not sure what your argument really is? That purely chance
occurences of a particular protein are increasingly small? Of course,
but then again, science is not arguing that these proteins formed by
pure chance.

Perhaps you can present your argument in a manner for me to better
understand as so far it seems that you have adopted the fallacious
creationist argument based on a confusion of probabilities with
proposed pathways.
For instance, given the choices you made every second, it is very
improbable that you ended up where you did, and yet you arrived
somewhere. Looking back it may seem very improbable that you arrived
there by chance alone.

I suggest you do some reading on RNA world as well as the excellent
research by Wagner, Stadler, and others on RNA evolution and RNA
networks,

Start here http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000306.html

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2004/07/complexity_darw.html

or search http://www.google.com/custom?cof=S%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.pandasthumb.org%3BGL%3A0%3BAH%3Acenter%3BAWFID%3A38e0a0f7f4d5f984%3B&domains=pandasthumb.org&sitesearch=pandasthumb.org&q=rna+scale+free&sa=Search

I have written extensively on these issues and they are fascinating in
that this research strongly contradict the arguments by IDists (and
earlier creationists) that evolution is too unlikely.

It's a good start, but more recent research by Gavrilets for instance
has shown that evolution is hardly that improbable either, based on
his concept of holey adaptive landscapes.
Fascinating theoretical work to show how much of what ID is arguing is
overly simplistic.

RNA World, a good start is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis

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Received on Sat Sep 8 22:29:28 2007