The issue of chance... (Evolution)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Friday, June 12, 2009, 15:09 (5641 days ago) @ David Turell

Mr. Turell, - The biggest issue to our disagreement is that you assume life must have the exact same rules and function that it has now... - My argument is that before biochemistry would begin, standard organic and inorganic chemistry would have to apply. And the broader issue of chance... I'm still writing that, but I need to add diagrams to it. I'll post it asap. - I still have yet to read Shapiro's book (I will do that in my august vacation), but in the meantime I want to take a moment to address an issue both you and dhw have raised. - Computer simulation isn't my specialty so I had to go out and read more about it, to deal with the issue that computer simulations have designers. This is true, however, the mathematics that we use within them are so simple that they easily lend themselves to chance. The fern algorithm (displayed on the webpage I'll provide) was made by messing around with different equations in visual sim environment. The key here, is that the mathematician in question wasn't trying to design such a structure, in fact he got it by chance himself. - A recursive algorithm is one that repeatedly "calls itself." The most well known is the Fibonacci sequence, giving rise to the golden ratio. The Fibonacci sequence can also be generated by chance--and it too appears constantly throughout nature. Most fractals are built by people messing around with variations on the Fibonacci relation. The takeaway, is Dr. Schecter's words. "Mathematics has the most certainty of all the sciences." If, we can be certain that complexity (at large) can arise by chance, (and we can-the simplest Fibonacci sequence is the same as the statement x + y, x = 0, y = 1), then we have no reason to assume that life--a recursive process--could not also have such an origin. This does not apply a probability, but it is why there are people engaging in abiogenesis in the first place. - (The fibonacci relation is so easy to generate by chance because its rule requires only two terms where one adds its previous generation n-number of times) - I read the nature article when I get home from work today. - http://www.math.vanderbilt.edu/~schectex/courses/wolfram.html