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Flawed point if it is used to justify the random speciation of evolution. If they can't type out shakespeare, how can evolution randomly yet correctly type out

Flawed point if it is used to justify the random speciation of evolution. If they can't type out shakespeare, how can evolution randomly yet correctly type out billions of base sequences of dna in just a cple mil yrs?

cortic 2y ago
correctly is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, and the selection process in evolution is not random.
- jdthedisciple 2y ago
  Not the selection itself is random, but the existence of genetic variants to select from randomly arises due to random genetic mutations according to the theory
  - Retric 2y ago
    The critical difference is evolutionary only needs relatively short sequences to be randomly generated, and there’s many valid sequences. Building a book by generating a single random text string is practically impossible, but if you lock in any given word that’s correct and retry that’ll quickly get something. You’ll have most 8 letter or shorter words correct after 1 trillion runs, and many 9 letter words. It wouldn’t be done, but someone could probably read and understand the work at that point. Further it’s possible for a few even longer words to match at that point. People think it’s unlikely that specific sequences happened randomly, but what they ignore is all the potential sequences that didn’t occur.
    - jdthedisciple 2y ago
      The many valid sequences are relatively nothing compared to the infinitely many invalid ones, right? > You’ll have most 6 letter or shorter words correct after 1 billion tries. You think that's "quick" for dna which is made up of billions of 6-base-sequences and for a species that can only reproduce sexually once every decade or so at best?
      - Retric 2y ago
        > many valid sequences are relatively nothing compared to the infinitely many invalid ones, right? There’s finite invalid sequences, DNA isn’t infinitely long. It’s also not a question of valid or invalid we live with sub optimal DNA, so yea most people aren’t born with some new beneficial mutation. However, not winning the lottery isn’t the same things a dying, and even smaller wins still benefit us. As to our long reproductive cycle, there’s a reason we share so much in common with other primates. Most of our DNA has been worked out for a long time. We share 98% of our DNA with pigs, and 85% of it is identical in mice which has practical application in drug development. Of note common ancestors were more closely related to us because both branches diverged. Hell 60% is shared with chickens, and half of it’s shared with trees. > only reproduce sexually once every decade or so at best? Many sperm and fetuses die from harmful mutations, live babies are late in the process here. Also, because order doesn’t matter you get multiple chances to roll the same sequence for every birth. PS: There’s also quite a bit of viral insertion into our DNA, it’s mostly sexual reproduction but we have some single cell ‘ancestors’ in our recent history.
      - danparsonson 2y ago
        > The many valid sequences are relatively nothing compared to the infinitely many invalid ones, right? I dont know about the relative numbers but I don't think you do either? Are you begging the question or can you quantify? > You think that's "quick" for dna which is made up of billions of 6-base-sequences and for a species that can only reproduce sexually once every decade or so at best? We didn't start from scratch, we are very very late in the game, and the groundwork for us was laid by millions of other species that can replicate quickly, often very quickly. Unless you believe the Earth is only six thousand years or so old, in which case we might as well leave the discussion where it is.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- TechnicalVault 2y ago
  The actual problem is upstream of that at the abiogenesis stage. For evolutionary selection to occur the machinery for selection must exist. Specifically information storage (DNA/RNA), replication(polymerases) and actioning (transcription) all are needed, and must continue to be able to exist for long enough to matter. Without selection pressure and inheritance you're just left with requiring a big enough universe and enough time for randomness not to matter.
hermitcrab 2y ago
Life has had 3-4 billions years to evolve on earth. I suggest you read 'the blind watchmaker' by Dawkins to answer your other question.
- jdthedisciple 2y ago
  You are just repeating the point that was being argued against. If the lifetime of the universe isn't enough to randomly produce Shakespeare, 3-4 billions of years are cute but useless to randomly produce anything even near as sophisticated as our 46 chromosome set. I imagine Dawkins still just repeats the conjecture "but it's 3-4 billion years, anything can happen!"
  - danparsonson 2y ago
    A work of Shakespeare is a single specific target, that's why it takes so long to hit it - one letter out doesn't cut it. DNA meanwhile is a general purpose animal kit that has many billions of 'correct answers'. It's not about sophistication.
    - jdthedisciple 2y ago
      it's not about the absolute number of correct answers it's about the ratio of valid / invalid answers which is somewhere very close to 0
      - danparsonson 2y ago
        [citation needed] What are the numbers?
hooverd 2y ago
There's no evolutionary pressure to type out Shakespeare.
BoxOfRain 2y ago
You're comparing chalk and cheese to an extent, a perfect copy of Shakespeare's work can exist in exactly one way but DNA isn't required to be copied perfectly, DNA can change without necessarily killing the organism or otherwise rendering it unable to reproduce. Additionally evolution is not a random process, while mutations are random the process by which the mutations are selected is not - it depends on whether the mutation is a reproductive advantage for the organism in the context of their ecological niche. Most mutations are going to be neutral or disadvantageous so they won't be selected. Additionally you're not mutating the whole DNA sequence at once, just parts of it.
- jdthedisciple 2y ago
  I would like to see someone use the most generous parameters possible and simulate the statistics of the first cple amino acids evolving into our homo sapiens sapiens chromosome set randomly over the course of just 4b years. (selection is irrelevant here; we could even just model it as always-select-for-beneficial-mutation for extra graciousness). Mind you, even if a beneficient mutation occurs, it is still not guaranteed to be passed onto the next generation. It would have to randomly occur over and over again. I'm not confident that it's gonna be very convincingly in favour of the random mutation model.
  - BoxOfRain 2y ago
    >Mind you, even if a beneficient mutation occurs, it is still not guaranteed to be passed onto the next generation. It would have to randomly occur over and over again. Why would it have to re-occur again and again? If the mutation is beneficial to the reproductive success of an organism, by definition their mutation will be passed on with no need for it to occur again by chance. The percentage of the population with the mutation would grow, potentially very quickly if it was a strong advantage over the previous generations. You're also characterising evolution as if to get from amoebas to humans you require a series of billions of independent coin-flips which isn't an accurate model, rather each generation is building on that which preceded it. Take the eye as an organ for example, it predates humanity by a very long time and was not independently evolved by humans - there was no need for it to have been since those genes already existed. The predictions of evolution are generally supported by the available evidence at any rate, if you'd like to overturn it you'll have to propose a theory that explains the evidence more compellingly.

cortic 2y ago

correctly is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, and the selection process in evolution is not random.

jdthedisciple 2y ago
Not the selection itself is random, but the existence of genetic variants to select from randomly arises due to random genetic mutations according to the theory
- Retric 2y ago
  The critical difference is evolutionary only needs relatively short sequences to be randomly generated, and there’s many valid sequences. Building a book by generating a single random text string is practically impossible, but if you lock in any given word that’s correct and retry that’ll quickly get something. You’ll have most 8 letter or shorter words correct after 1 trillion runs, and many 9 letter words. It wouldn’t be done, but someone could probably read and understand the work at that point. Further it’s possible for a few even longer words to match at that point. People think it’s unlikely that specific sequences happened randomly, but what they ignore is all the potential sequences that didn’t occur.
  - jdthedisciple 2y ago
    The many valid sequences are relatively nothing compared to the infinitely many invalid ones, right? > You’ll have most 6 letter or shorter words correct after 1 billion tries. You think that's "quick" for dna which is made up of billions of 6-base-sequences and for a species that can only reproduce sexually once every decade or so at best?
    - Retric 2y ago
      > many valid sequences are relatively nothing compared to the infinitely many invalid ones, right? There’s finite invalid sequences, DNA isn’t infinitely long. It’s also not a question of valid or invalid we live with sub optimal DNA, so yea most people aren’t born with some new beneficial mutation. However, not winning the lottery isn’t the same things a dying, and even smaller wins still benefit us. As to our long reproductive cycle, there’s a reason we share so much in common with other primates. Most of our DNA has been worked out for a long time. We share 98% of our DNA with pigs, and 85% of it is identical in mice which has practical application in drug development. Of note common ancestors were more closely related to us because both branches diverged. Hell 60% is shared with chickens, and half of it’s shared with trees. > only reproduce sexually once every decade or so at best? Many sperm and fetuses die from harmful mutations, live babies are late in the process here. Also, because order doesn’t matter you get multiple chances to roll the same sequence for every birth. PS: There’s also quite a bit of viral insertion into our DNA, it’s mostly sexual reproduction but we have some single cell ‘ancestors’ in our recent history.
    - danparsonson 2y ago
      > The many valid sequences are relatively nothing compared to the infinitely many invalid ones, right? I dont know about the relative numbers but I don't think you do either? Are you begging the question or can you quantify? > You think that's "quick" for dna which is made up of billions of 6-base-sequences and for a species that can only reproduce sexually once every decade or so at best? We didn't start from scratch, we are very very late in the game, and the groundwork for us was laid by millions of other species that can replicate quickly, often very quickly. Unless you believe the Earth is only six thousand years or so old, in which case we might as well leave the discussion where it is.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
TechnicalVault 2y ago
The actual problem is upstream of that at the abiogenesis stage. For evolutionary selection to occur the machinery for selection must exist. Specifically information storage (DNA/RNA), replication(polymerases) and actioning (transcription) all are needed, and must continue to be able to exist for long enough to matter. Without selection pressure and inheritance you're just left with requiring a big enough universe and enough time for randomness not to matter.

hermitcrab 2y ago

Life has had 3-4 billions years to evolve on earth. I suggest you read 'the blind watchmaker' by Dawkins to answer your other question.

jdthedisciple 2y ago
You are just repeating the point that was being argued against. If the lifetime of the universe isn't enough to randomly produce Shakespeare, 3-4 billions of years are cute but useless to randomly produce anything even near as sophisticated as our 46 chromosome set. I imagine Dawkins still just repeats the conjecture "but it's 3-4 billion years, anything can happen!"
- danparsonson 2y ago
  A work of Shakespeare is a single specific target, that's why it takes so long to hit it - one letter out doesn't cut it. DNA meanwhile is a general purpose animal kit that has many billions of 'correct answers'. It's not about sophistication.
  - jdthedisciple 2y ago
    it's not about the absolute number of correct answers it's about the ratio of valid / invalid answers which is somewhere very close to 0
    - danparsonson 2y ago
      [citation needed] What are the numbers?

hooverd 2y ago

There's no evolutionary pressure to type out Shakespeare.

BoxOfRain 2y ago

You're comparing chalk and cheese to an extent, a perfect copy of Shakespeare's work can exist in exactly one way but DNA isn't required to be copied perfectly, DNA can change without necessarily killing the organism or otherwise rendering it unable to reproduce. Additionally evolution is not a random process, while mutations are random the process by which the mutations are selected is not - it depends on whether the mutation is a reproductive advantage for the organism in the context of their ecological niche. Most mutations are going to be neutral or disadvantageous so they won't be selected. Additionally you're not mutating the whole DNA sequence at once, just parts of it.

jdthedisciple 2y ago
I would like to see someone use the most generous parameters possible and simulate the statistics of the first cple amino acids evolving into our homo sapiens sapiens chromosome set randomly over the course of just 4b years. (selection is irrelevant here; we could even just model it as always-select-for-beneficial-mutation for extra graciousness). Mind you, even if a beneficient mutation occurs, it is still not guaranteed to be passed onto the next generation. It would have to randomly occur over and over again. I'm not confident that it's gonna be very convincingly in favour of the random mutation model.
- BoxOfRain 2y ago
  >Mind you, even if a beneficient mutation occurs, it is still not guaranteed to be passed onto the next generation. It would have to randomly occur over and over again. Why would it have to re-occur again and again? If the mutation is beneficial to the reproductive success of an organism, by definition their mutation will be passed on with no need for it to occur again by chance. The percentage of the population with the mutation would grow, potentially very quickly if it was a strong advantage over the previous generations. You're also characterising evolution as if to get from amoebas to humans you require a series of billions of independent coin-flips which isn't an accurate model, rather each generation is building on that which preceded it. Take the eye as an organ for example, it predates humanity by a very long time and was not independently evolved by humans - there was no need for it to have been since those genes already existed. The predictions of evolution are generally supported by the available evidence at any rate, if you'd like to overturn it you'll have to propose a theory that explains the evidence more compellingly.