Evolution (Evolution)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Wednesday, March 26, 2008, 13:10 (6084 days ago) @ David Turell

David wrote: /// George, if I may address you this way, yes, it is perfectly possible to visualize a gradual build up of complex molecules. Fusion reactions are fairly straight forward. No where near as complex as making the first RNA or DNA. The real issue is whether it could possibly happen by chance. I believe it requires as much faith on your part to accept chance as I have developed on my part. DNA/RNA contains billions and billions of bits of information. David Foster, in "The Philosophic Scientists", 1985, estimated that DNA was equal to about 20,000 rather long books in English. Foster started by discussing the conclusions of the 1930's Cambridge Club lead by Sir Arthur Eddington. The Wistar Institute Symposium of 1967 had leading mathematicians conclude that, given the rate of mutation, there has not been enough time to get to where evolution is now. Many other mathematicians since then, David Berlinski to name just one, have reached the same conclusion. /// - Not being familiar with any of the works quoted I delayed replying before checking them out. There is a review of Foster's work here: - http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho15.htm - Quote: The problem with Foster's calculation is that he assumes that (1) the whole protein must be created in one step out of nothing, and (2) that the total sequence is unique and has no repeated units and (3) that each amino acid is specific and irreplaceable. These assumptions are wrong. - The Wistar Institute Symposium was a gathering of "Intelligent Design" proponents, adversely reviewed here: - http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/02/id-intelligent.html - David Berlinski is a fellow of the Discovery Institute, another bastion of "Intelligent Design" creationists. - Other creationists argue, on the opposite tack, that mutation rates are too fast! As here: - http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/articles_debates/mutation_rate.htm - I am grateful to several BCSE members, more knowledgeable than myself, for help in elucidating these issues.