Non-beneficial Gaps

All known language/information systems share a common feature. If
concepts or ideas or forms of information require a greater number of
characters or a greater specificity of character arrangement, the
ratio of potentially meaningful or useful or functional systems
relative to the number of potential character arrangements drops off
*exponentially*.

This is true of the English language as well as all other spoken or
written human languages, computer codes and programs, and even of
genetic information and protein-based biosystems.

Let's start with the English language/information system. What is the
ratio of potentially meaningful vs. meaningless 2-character sequences
are there? Well, its around 1 in 7. What about 3-character
sequences? About 1 in 18. What about 7-character sequences? About 1
in 250,000.

Exactly the same pattern is present in computer codes and programs.
It is also present in the information systems of DNA and proteins.
There is a demonstrable decline in the ratio of useful genetic
sequences and protein-based systems, from the perspective of a given
life form, with each increase in either the minimum size requirement
or the minimum degree of sequence specificity needed for certain kinds
of higher-level systems to work. This decline is related to the
increase in minimum structural threshold requirements in an
exponential nature - just as it is for the decline in the ratio of
potentially meaningful English-language sequences with each additional
specified character requirement.

While there is certainly more flexibility for protein-based systems
relative to the English language system, the principle is the same.
Increase either the size or the specificity requirements under
consideration and there will be an exponential decline in the ratio of
potentially useful protein-based systems that meet those
requirements. The best available evidence also suggests that there is
also the same exponential decline in *potentially* beneficial targets
in sequence/structure space at higher and higher levels of minimum
structural threshold requirements.

So what? What does this have to do with anything?

What these facts strongly suggest is that the average distance between
what exists as a starting point or points in a given gene pool of
options and the next closest potentially beneficial system increases
in a linear manner with each increase in the minimum structural
threshold requirements under consideration. A linear increase in the
average distance translates into a linear increase in the minimum
likely distance between any starting point that exists and the next
closest target that is yet to be found in sequence/structure space. A
linear increase in this minimum distance translates into an
exponential increase in the average time it would take for a series of
random mutations or mutational "steps" to find a novel target sequence
or structure in sequence/structure space.

This random walk is truly random at this point. Natural or function-
based selection cannot help guide this walk until the novel target is
actually discovered, to at least some useful level of functionality,
by pure chance.

This method can actually work when the non-beneficial gaps are small -
like only 3 or 4 or steps wide. However, when the minimum gap
distance reaches a few dozen steps wide, the average random walk time
works its way into the trillions upon trillions of years - even for a
colony the size of all the bacteria on Earth (i.e., ~1e30
individuals).

This is a fundamental problem for the ToE. Every living thing
requires many systems that have minimum structural threshold
limitations well beyond the 1000aa mark. A requirement of 1000 fairly
specified amino acid residues, at minimum, produces an average gap
that is two to three hundred residues wide and a likely minimum gap
that is at least 50 mutational changes wide. Such a gap is not
crossable - even given an evolutionary time frame of several billion
years.

There are in fact no examples of evolution at this level or beyond in
all of literature - not one example of evolution in action. There are
only assumptions or stories about how the evolutionary mechanism must
have worked at these higher levels of complexity, but there are no
real observations of the proposed evolutionary mechanism actually
working at such levels - none.

Now, why might that be?

To see a visual representation of existing proteins that show a linear
expansion of the average and minimum gap sizes with increasing size,
see the following link:

http://www.pnas.org/content/vol103/issue38/images/large/zpq0370634700004.jpeg

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Non-beneficial Gaps
    ... relative to the number of potential character arrangements drops off ... ratio of potentially meaningful vs. meaningless 2-character sequences ... or the minimum degree of sequence specificity needed for certain kinds ... that is two to three hundred residues wide and a likely minimum gap ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Non-beneficial Gaps
    ... relative to the number of potential character arrangements drops off ... ratio of potentially meaningful vs. meaningless 2-character sequences ... or the minimum degree of sequence specificity needed for certain kinds ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Non-beneficial Gaps
    ... relative to the number of potential character arrangements drops off ... ratio of potentially meaningful vs. meaningless 2-character sequences ... or the minimum degree of sequence specificity needed for certain kinds ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: =?iso-8859-1?q?Re:_For_Kim_G._S._=D8yhus?=
    ... >>>motility without a fairly large minimum system size and specificity. ... that you do not provide evidence where you provide no evidence. ... Yes, through mutation, recombination, and reuse of sequences, like ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Entropy in crystalization: up or down?
    ... specificity threshold than do other potentially beneficial sequences. ... threshold sequences because their ratio in sequence space is ... threshold requirements at the same rate it finds systems with fewer ... all language/information systems when it comes to useful or meaningful ...
    (talk.origins)