Re: Lenny's Counter Argument

On Jan 29, 8:18 pm, William Morse <wdNOSPAmo...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

My newsreader did not want to properly follow to this post, so I copied
and pasted and will put your comments in quotes, and start my replies
with WDM:

"Not beyond very low levels of functional complexity this is by no
means true.  It simply has not been observed to happen nor is it
remotely likely to happen, by RM/NS, beyond the 1000 fsaar threshold
level of functional complexity.  The gradual addition of structural
elements to produce higher and higher levels of functional complexity
becomes exponentially harder and harder to do because of the
exponential decline in the ratio of potential targets vs. non-targets
in sequence space at higher and higher levels of functional
complexity."

"It is very much like adding letters to growing English-language
sequences.  It is very easy to start out with a one or two character
sequence, like I or It, and then add another letter and have it be
meaningful - like kit or pit, and then add another letter to that and
have it be meaningful like spit or kits . . . etc.  Using random
mutational additions in this manner, in a fairly large population, one
can fairly quickly produce a sequence of over a dozen characters.
However, pretty soon, the evolutionary progress starts to die off, in
an exponential manner, even for very large populations of mutating
sequences undergoing function-based selection, until there is simply
no more evolutionary progress, even given trillions of years of time,
well before the 1000-character level is reached."

WDM: I note that we do not in fact use many words with more than a dozen
characters. We start combining them with other words. This is a backwards
analogy, because the words existed before the letters. But the point
remains that the words consisted of only a handful of phonemes, with a
few extra tricks (case, etc.) thrown in. After that point we went to
combinations. So your statistical argument might help to explain, from an
evolutionary standpoint, why language is composed of a large number of
words of limited size vs. fewer words of larger size. Since evolutionary
progress is based on a large number of units of limited size (the four
"letter" DNA code being a prime example), with duplication and subsequent
modification being a common mode for creation of longer sequences, your
argument is irrelevant, except as I noted for abiogenesis.

I don't understand your argument here? For all language/information
systems there are basic characters or "letters". For computers these
are 0 and 1. For English, these are the 26 letters of the alphabet
plus a few other symbols like spaces and punctuation. For biosystems
these are the 4 nucleotides of DNA (A,T,C and G). For proteins these
are the 20 amino acids. It is in the specific combination of these
characters or "letters" that meaning or functionality is produced in a
given language/information system.

It is completely irrelevant how blocks of information are built up.
It doesn't matter if most English "words" are short rather than long.
The same thing is true of basic blocks of computer code information as
well as codons within DNA and basic protein folds or motifs. What is
interesting and relevant is the fact that in all language/information
systems, any particular type of functional element that is
qualitatively unique, which also requires a greater minimum size and/
or sequence specificity, will also exist in a level of sequence space
that has a much much lower ratio of potentially meaningful/beneficial
sequences compared to lower minimum threshold requirements. It is the
absolute minimum size/specificity requirement of basic characters that
is important - not how that threshold requirment is divided up into a
certain number of "words" or "phrases" or "paragraphs" or whatever.
All that matters is the minimum requirement of basic building blocks
in a specific arrangement. That's it.

For the English language system this means that if a particular type
of function can only be described in adequate detail by 10,000
characters, this type of function or meaning is much much more
functionally "complex" relative to a qualitatively different type of
meaning or function that can be described by 10 characters. The
higher level functional system or sequence also exists in a much
larger sequence space that has an exponentially lower ratio of
potentially beneficial vs. non-beneficial sequences.

"This is not the case with the TTSS system.  This toxin injector system
required around 10 different proteins.  It has recently been
conclusively demonstrated that this system evolved from a fully formed
flagellar system which required around 40 structural proteins."

WDM: I'm sorry, since you switched the thread from an earlier one, I
don't know what you are referring to by the TTSS system. Let me know .

"So, you see, this is an example of evolutionary deconstruction, not
construction - unlikely your assertions of what is likely to occur at
this level of functional complexity."

WDM: I will consider this once I know what you are referring to.

http://www.detectingdesign.com/flagellum.html#The%20Starting%20Point

"Not remotely true.  All you have to do is remove the genes for eyes
from fish population and see how long it takes, even in an environment
that strongly favors eye evolution, for this population to evolve its
eyes back again by using historically non-eye systems.  This is a much
much different scenario that putting fish with eyes into an
environment where eyes are not selectably advantageous and seeing how
long it takes for these fish to loose their eyes.  This scenario
happens very very rapidly - relative to the first scenario (which
would never happen at all - statistically)."

WDM: Well of course it did happen, as we know from the fossil record and
the DNA record. It took quite a long time - several hundreds of millions
of years - even in an environment that strongly favors eye evolution.

The question isn't that it happened. We all believe that it
happened. The question is how it happened. Did it happen by RM/NS
like you assume? What is the basis of this assumption of your
regarding the mechanism of RM/NS? Do you have any support for your
notion that this particular mechanism is remotely likely to have done
the job you claim that it did?

"You simply don't understand the statistical basis of your argument.
Actually sit down and try do understand the idea that the ratio of
potentially beneficial vs. non-beneficial in sequence space is
reduced, exponentially, with each step up the ladder of functional
complexity.  Consider also that this pattern poses more and more of a
problem for evolutionary progress, via the mechanism of RM/NS, at
higher and higher levels of functional complexity."

WDM: Since my argument is based
on genome duplication and developmental
switches, your statistics don't apply. I'm guessing they are wrong even
based on classical pop-gen arguments, but I will leave that to others.
You have already recognized my argument in the discussion above. We do
not construct new meaning in language by increasing word length, we do it
by combining existing small words in new ways.

That increases sequence length Bill. It isn't word length that is
important here. It is the overall minimum sequence length that is
important. For example, what is the sequence length of the phrase:
"Methinks it is like a weasel."? The answer is 28 characters in
length with 28 options per character position (26 letters plus a space
and a period). The odds that duplication mutations combined with
other forms of single and multicharacter mutations will hit upon
anything that requires a greater minimum size and/or sequence
specificity are exponentially lower than they are for hitting upon
lower level systems. This is due to the fact that higher levels of
sequence space have an exponential reduction in the number of
beneficial vs. non-beneficial sequences. That's the problem with the
mechanism of RM/NS. It stalls out, in an exponential manner, with
each step up the ladder of functional complexity.

Yours,
Bill Morse

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

.

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