Abiogenesis and Probabilities

[DrNoGods]

I'm creating a new thread here to continue debate on a post made by EarthScience guy on another thread (Science and Religion > Artificial life: can it be created?, post 17). This post challenged probability calculations in an old Talkorigins article that I had linked in that thread:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

Are the arguments (on creationist views) and probabilities presented reasonable in the Talkorigins article? If not, why not?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Bradskii in post #0]

And that's simply random changes. And you know (as a science guy) that evolution isn't random. So the question is actually...how come it took so long? Even using your figure of 35 million years, if you consider 100 changes per generation - or say 10 per year (not the 1 per year you proposed) we're down to 3.5 million years. Which is about half the generally accepted timescale.

Actually, the neutral theory states that the changes have to be random. If you are saying that evolution is like the Dawkins scenario then each trait that is expressed in a population would take 300 generations before the next one could be expressed, according to Kimura the author of neutral theory.

But let's take your 10 per year. A progeny receives all the mutations from the sperm and egg so the progeny would acquire 20 mutations per year. Therefore in a human-like species with a 20-year generation, each progeny would receive over 400 new mutations. You are correct in saying that this would be more than enough mutations for evolution to take place. But you have one little problem with the scenario that you are proposing.

Kimura, and King, and Jukes estimate that amino-acid altering mutations are roughly 10 times more likely to be harmful than neutral mutations. So that means that into this population of apes you would be adding 3600 harmful mutations in each generation.

Error catastrophe is when harmful mutations accumulate too fast and genetic deterioration becomes unavoidable. The standard genetic model predicts that error catastrophe happens when the mutation rate gets much above one harmful mutation per progeny. That is 0.5 harmful mutations per gamete per generation. If harmful mutations are 10 times more likely to be definitely harmful than neutral, that the expressed neutral mutations cannot be more common than 0.05 per gamete per generation. Therefore in 10 million years, a human-like population could substitute no more than 25,000 expressed neutral mutations. That amounts to .0007 percent of the genome.

Incidentally, the genetic differences between any two individual humans is already 0.1%. According to you, it seems there's a 3.5 million year difference between my wife and myself. I should maybe check her date of birth.

You are speaking of a SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) which is different than a mutation.

The main difference between SNP and mutation is that SNP is a type of mutation that occurs in a single nucleotide in the genome whereas a mutation can be many types of changes in the structure or the quantity of DNA. Furthermore, SNPs bring variations to the genomes within a population while a mutation always refers to a novel change in the genome. https://pediaa.com/what-is-the-differen ... -mutation/

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #31]

You are speaking of a SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) which is different than a mutation.

No ... a SNP is a mutation. It is just a change in one base (A, G, C or T) along DNA rather than multiple changes. But both are technically mutations.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #0]

From what source? Since you used the word "formed" (rather than "created") I take it you are OK with the accepted process of planet formation via accretion. Given this, once the young planet Earth reached a size where it had swept out the smaller items in its orbit and had enough gravity to become spherical (a planet), it is believed to have been a very hot, molten ball of rock that slowly cooled, while also being bombarded with meteorites and comets as well. Volcanic activity would have been the primary source of admitting gases into the atmosphere, which is why it is believed that the early atmosphere had lots of CO2 (in particular) and N2, with CH4, NH3, CO and H2O tossed in as well. O2 was a relatively minor constituent very early on.

No, the Bible states that water was created and the Earth was formed from the water. If you think accretion can happen in a constantly accelerating environment then why are the chunks in Saturn rings getting smaller instead of larger?

Volcanic activity gives off mostly H2O. Without an ozone layer, the H2O would have been quickly turned into hydrogen and oxygen. I am not sure where you are getting elemental nitrogen from not from volcanoes.

There was no claim that the early Earth's atmosphere had NO oxygen, just very little compared to today (20.9%). This article has a chart showing O2 vs. time with a big question mark prior to 2.5 billion years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologica ... _of_oxygen

Your articles says:

“When you have an atmosphere produced from magma at the right oxidation state, you get one made up of about 97 percent carbon dioxide and 3 percent nitrogen once it cools down, the same ratio found today on Venus and Mars.”

I would say there is not much room for oxygen in those percentages.

Granite is continuously formed (magma), relocated by tectonic plate movements and volcanic activity, convection in the mantle, etc. It didn't all just form 4+ billion years ago and sit there ... the Earth's crust and upper mantle is a very dynamic system on geologic time scales.. Granite also exists under the oceans where most of the O2 in the early atmosphere would have ended up before land plants came along only about 500 million years ago (hence the banded iron formations that we see). It isn't nearly as simple as you are suggesting (ie. Fe2O3 exists in granite so there must have been lots of atmospheric O2).

The Canadian Shield contains some of the oldest rocks on Earth. In 2008, researchers estimated rock found on the northern shore of Hudson Bay, 40 km south of Inukjuak, to be 4.28 billion years old. Its age means the rock was created approximately a 300million years after the formation of Earth. Previously, the oldest rocks in the world were thought to be southeast of Great Bear Lake, in the Northwest Territories. These rocks were estimated to be 4 billion years old. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/ ... cle/shield

Each continent has it own shield. An area of "very old rock" According to your article the Canadian shield which is formed from granite had to be formed in an environment that was rich with oxygen.

Peridotite being formed in a CO2 environment is a prediction that Walt Brown's Hydroplate theory does predict. The subterranean waters would be filled with CO2. This Argonne Lab's results actually supports creation theory.

Oh No ... not the Walt Brown Hydroplate nonsense again! Please spare us a revisit of that subject. And creationism is not a "theory" in the scientific sense. It is a class of made-up stories (most religions have one, and they are anything but consistent with each other) that are believed purely on faith. At best they could be called hypotheses ... but with so far no evidentiary support.

His theory is always supported when discoveries are made.

Also, you seem happy to make arguments that use, for example, 4.3 billon year old granite on Earth, but are a creationist which is not consistent with those kinds of ages (at least the not biblical version and its supposed time of occurrence). Any proper YEC would not accept 4.3 billion year old rocks, so I take it you are not a YEC?

Those are ages are for those that believe in deep time. Deep time theory states that granite should not be formed according to your articles.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #0]

No ... a SNP is a mutation. It is just a change in one base (A, G, C or T) along DNA rather than multiple changes. But both are technically mutations.

I am not the one that made the distinction between the two. According to the article I cited a mutation is the first step in evolution and an SNP is not involved in evolution.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #33]

No, the Bible states that water was created and the Earth was formed from the water.

And we know that is most definitely not how it happened. So not sure what this comment is meant to support.

If you think accretion can happen in a constantly accelerating environment then why are the chunks in Saturn rings getting smaller instead of larger?

The particles that make up Saturn's rings are in orbit around Saturn, so their acceleration (towards the planet) is perpendicular to their velocity which stays constant (for a circular orbit). What do you think would happen if some of the particles clumped together to make a large enough body that its own gravity could attract other particles (ie. accretion)? Saturn has several "shepard moons" including Prometheus, Daphnis, Pan, Janus and Epimetheus, as do other planets. If the particles are all orbiting at a roughly constant velocity (as they are for Saturn's rings), then accretion is certainly possible. Come back in a few hundred million years and see if they look like they do now.

https://earthsky.org/space/history-saturns-rings/

Volcanic activity gives off mostly H2O. Without an ozone layer, the H2O would have been quickly turned into hydrogen and oxygen. I am not sure where you are getting elemental nitrogen from not from volcanoes.

"Mostly" H2O, but they also belch out significan amounts of CO2, SO2, H2S, NH3 and a slew of other gases. Photodissociation of H2O in the atmosphere is mainly at UV wavelengths between 175 - 200 nm, and produces mostly H + OH, not O2 (the Lyman Alpha wavelength at 121.6 nm produces H2 + O). You can run an electrical discharge through liquid H2O and make H2 and O2, but that is a different mechanism. The Sun is not going to dissociate all of the H2O from volcanoes whether an ozone layer is present or not. In fact, it is O2 and not O3, that absorbs stronger below 200 nm where H2O is photodissociated (see Fig. 1):

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... easurement

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... ectrum.png

Here's a paper that is not behind paywall showing the O3 cross sections in more detail:

https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/7/6 ... 9-2014.pdf

I didn't say elemental nitrogen (N), but N2 (gas phase stable nitrogen), and it didn't have to come directly from volcanoes. Photodissociation of NH3 can make N2:

https://www.universetoday.com/26659/ear ... tmosphere/

and since N2 is chemically stable it will hang around and eventually accumulate over long periods of time.

I would say there is not much room for oxygen in those percentages.

But plenty of N2. Those are obviously estimates with no decimal points, and there are sources for O2 that aren't volcanic.

Each continent has it own shield. An area of "very old rock" According to your article the Canadian shield which is formed from granite had to be formed in an environment that was rich with oxygen.

And when did these "shields" form relative to when the atmosphere was oxygenated? When, exactly, did the Canadian shield form? Was it less than 2.5 billion years ago?

https://www.britannica.com/science/continental-shield

His theory is always supported when discoveries are made.

Care to reference some peer-reviewed articles confirming this? Or even a Wikipedia article?

Those are ages are for those that believe in deep time. Deep time theory states that granite should not be formed according to your articles.

You're misinterpreting the articles.

[Bradskii]

[Replying to Bradskii in post #0]

And that's simply random changes. And you know (as a science guy) that evolution isn't random. So the question is actually...how come it took so long? Even using your figure of 35 million years, if you consider 100 changes per generation - or say 10 per year (not the 1 per year you proposed) we're down to 3.5 million years. Which is about half the generally accepted timescale.

But let's take your 10 per year. A progeny receives all the mutations from the sperm and egg so the progeny would acquire 20 mutations per year. Therefore in a human-like species with a 20-year generation, each progeny would receive over 400 new mutations.

What? No, it's 100 changes per generation. I only used 'changes per year' to show you how that converts to a timeline of 3.5 million years. There's no such thing as a 'change per year'. You only get changes per generation.

And they are random. And mostly deleterious. A few are neutral and a very few are advantageous. And that's where natural selection comes in. And we're not talking about a single line of descent. We are talking of hundreds of thousands. So even small changes will propagate through any given population if the conditions are right. And any extant species (such as us) will have obviously experienced suitable conditions.

And error catastrophe relates to micro-organisms, not macro species. See here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1317512/

Where are you getting your information from? You need to start linking to where it comes from. I get the impression you are throwing random info at the wall to see what sticks.

[Bradskii]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #0]

No ... a SNP is a mutation. It is just a change in one base (A, G, C or T) along DNA rather than multiple changes. But both are technically mutations.

I am not the one that made the distinction between the two. According to the article I cited a mutation is the first step in evolution and an SNP is not involved in evolution.

"If SNPs change either the function of a gene or its expression, and the change provides greater fitness for a population (i.e., a higher capacity to survive and/or reproduce in a given environment), the change will be favored by natural selection. Therefore, SNPs can be the basis of evolutionary change." https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpa ... typic-706/

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Bradskii in post #36]

Where are you getting your information from? You need to start linking to where it comes from. I get the impression you are throwing random info at the wall to see what sticks.

From many prior discussions ... Answers and Genesis and similar creationist websites seem to be the source of much of ESG's arguments. These organizations push creationism over science and try in vain to make the two compatible via pseudoscience of all kinds. People like Russell Humphreys and Walt Brown are often referenced, who are referred to using the oxymoron "creation scientists." But it would be useful to get direct references when authors are quoted to save time looking them up.

[Bradskii]

[Replying to Bradskii in post #36]

Where are you getting your information from? You need to start linking to where it comes from. I get the impression you are throwing random info at the wall to see what sticks.

From many prior discussions ... Answers and Genesis and similar creationist websites seem to be the source of much of ESG's arguments. These organizations push creationism over science and try in vain to make the two compatible via pseudoscience of all kinds. People like Russell Humphreys and Walt Brown are often referenced, who are referred to using the oxymoron "creation scientists." But it would be useful to get direct references when authors are quoted to save time looking them up.

But at least the papers that AIG publish are peer reviewed:

'...papers in our journal will be reviewed by the best experts we have available to us through a large network of well-qualified creationist researchers, scientists, and theologians who are the best thinkers in their fields of creationist research.' https://answersresearchjournal.org/about/

OK...stop sniggering up the back, please.

[benchwarmer]

[Replying to Bradskii in post #36]

Where are you getting your information from? You need to start linking to where it comes from. I get the impression you are throwing random info at the wall to see what sticks.

From many prior discussions ... Answers and Genesis and similar creationist websites seem to be the source of much of ESG's arguments. These organizations push creationism over science and try in vain to make the two compatible via pseudoscience of all kinds. People like Russell Humphreys and Walt Brown are often referenced, who are referred to using the oxymoron "creation scientists." But it would be useful to get direct references when authors are quoted to save time looking them up.

But at least the papers that AIG publish are peer reviewed:

'...papers in our journal will be reviewed by the best experts we have available to us through a large network of well-qualified creationist researchers, scientists, and theologians who are the best thinkers in their fields of creationist research.' https://answersresearchjournal.org/about/

OK...stop sniggering up the back, please.

Well, at least they (at AIG) are honest about the peer review. Their research is peer reviewed by their peers. Of course their work would never make it past a wider scientific peer review. I'm not even sure why they (at AIG) bother with peer review though. They have a statement of faith which governs all their peers and thus any work produced. I guess perhaps they review it to make sure conflicting, real world data is suppressed and only stuff that matches their statement of faith makes it through.

AIG statement of faith:
https://answersingenesis.org/about/faith/