Disgusting, Scary 'Walking' Fish Invades Maryland 161
texchanchan writes: "It's from China, it's a predator, and it can live for DAYS out of water. And it's in Maryland as reported at Yahoo. 'They can survive for two to three days out of water, breathing air with a primitive lung, pushing themselves around with their pectoral fins.' Read about it at the Maryland Fishing Report site or just look at its picture. Maryland Fishing Report says: 'This fish was most likely introduced by an individual with an aquarium. Never release aquarium fish into ponds and lakes!' Those exotic species will get us yet."
proof (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:proof (Score:3, Funny)
Re:proof (Score:1)
Re:proof (Score:1)
Re:proof (Score:2)
Yes, but you're a bit late: <wallace>Everybody knows the moon is made of cheese.</wallace>
Re:proof? yes, of some things (Score:3, Informative)
It's live wiggling proof that intermediate forms exist. An argument sometimes used against Darwinian evolution is that something in between species A and B couldn't compete with the fully functional A creatures now in their prime, nor would it yet have the equipment needed to be a successful B. But this guy looks like he's succeeding quite well as A fish that's Becoming amphibious (given a few tens of millions of years). If that's possible now, why not in the past as well?
Re,
Geologic time [berkeley.edu] on a short page
Geologic time [palaeos.com] on a long page
Links to a lot of geological time charts [universalguide.com]
This site Precambrian Earth [geocities.com] is a red hot mix of geology (from a lot longer ago than our amphibious ancestors) and what might be religion.
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:2)
> An argument sometimes used against Darwinian evolution is that something in between species A and B couldn't compete with the fully functional A creatures now in their prime, nor would it yet have the equipment needed to be a successful B.
And its one of the more egregiously bad arguments offered by a group already well known for offering bad arguments, since even preschoolers know about whales, seals, walruses, otters, beavers, and a bunch of other "acquatic mammals" living various shades of intermediate lifestyles. (And of course everyone's favorite intermediate form, penguins.)
This indicates that the primary fault of creationists isn't mere ignorance, but rather an underlying unwillingness to think.
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:1, Interesting)
To get the correct chirality by random chance for just one protein is one chance in 2^410 or more than 10^123. That doesn't even consider the all-important sequencing of those proteins, nor folding them properly, nor the environment they're in (for example, water causes proteins to dissociate, not to polymerize).
There are only 10^78 (estimates I've seen range from 10^62 to 10^78) atoms in the universe. The universe has been around (based on 18 billion years) for less than 10^18 seconds. So even making one protein per each atom in the universe per second for the lifetime of the universe still gives bad odds for the correct chirality of one protein (one in 10^27).
Once you stop and think, the odds of life arising are tiny enough to be equivalent to impossible. It takes a lot more faith to believe in molecules to man evolution than to believe in the Bible.
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:2, Interesting)
It may be possible to get to something resembling a living creature through successive iterations and mutations of a "not-life" protein. These can happen very, very fast and are completely directed (in the sense that they are non-random, as you proposed).
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:1, Interesting)
So your way of getting around impossible is to suggest "allow for self-replicating proteins". If the protein is just 51 amino acids (considered too small for the smallest bound of 60 for a protein, but it is the final size of insulin which starts out bigger as proinsulin), with 3 glycines (insulin's amount of them), you have 2^48 odds or 10^14 odds of getting just the chirality correct. To get a specific 51-acid chain you would have odds of one in 20^51 (ignoring chirality) or one in more than 10^66. So even if you say there were a million billion (10^15) possible 51-amino acid proteins that were self-replicating, you'd still be at worse than one in 10^50 odds to get any one of them to ever exist. And 10^50 is defined as impossible. And all that is assuming very favorable conditions - i.e., only amino acids bond to the forming chain, only the 20 common ones for life get involved (there are an awful lot of other amino acids in the world, just not in life), ignoring that this is happening in water where the energy gradient is against the hydrolysis involved in peptide chain building.
And if there were a self-replicating protein, what would prevent it from continuing to exist today? Where is it?
And if gradual evolution is to be accepted, why are there no 2-5 cell creatures - why unicellular and many-cellular, no few-cellular? Surely it would be adaptive to have a bicellular organism with one able to work in acid, one in base, and the inactive one goes dormant during its non-advantageous state (myriad other examples are simple to imagine).
Science is not about "might be". It's about facts. And a simple fact is that unless the "self-replicating protein" were near-perfect in replicative abilities, it would not be able to accurately reproduce itself. And simple entropic principles would lead to its degradation into simpler parts.
You state that a nonliving protein is "completely directed". By what?
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:3, Insightful)
You state that a nonliving protein is "completely directed". By what?
There were only two, small points I wanted to make. You proposed that the odds of life spontaneously generating are one chance in 2^410 or more than 10^123 . All I was saying is that that's only if you are calculating with totally independent events.
As soon as you throw in the possibility of a self-replicating protein of significantly smaller size then the chances get down to 10^50 according to you. This is already significantly more possible.
Finally, once you have a self-replicating molecule the chances of there being mutations in the replicating process leading to other, shall we say, interesting developments are much higher than any one thing happening as if by magic (ie as a one 10^123 chance).
The "completely directed" means directed towards replicating, creating more, becoming more life-like, as opposed to a bunch of building blocks randomly bumping into each other in a primordial alphabet soup.
And if gradual evolution is to be accepted, why are there no 2-5 cell creatures - why unicellular and many-cellular, no few-cellular? Surely it would be adaptive to have a bicellular organism with one able to work in acid, one in base, and the inactive one goes dormant during its non-advantageous state (myriad other examples are simple to imagine).
This is a strange argument. Why does evolution need to go through every possible state to get where we are? In any case, we are constantly finding new species. (Wasn't a new species of deer just discovered in China or something? A big, mammal walking around under our noses for 5000 recorded years and we've never catalogued it.) Just because we haven't uncovered an entire fauna of low-cellular creatures doesn't mean they are not out there.
I'm not saying your belief in creationism is wrong, I'm just saying that there might be some ramifications you may want to make in your arguments if you'd like to be more effective. All of your data about the possibility of a bunch of AA's coming together and making life in one fell swoop don't mean anything if that's not the expected path of it happening. You didn't give any mention of the possibility of catastrophes (asteroids, volcanoes, etc) injecting energy into the system, for example. A lot can happen over millions of years, and the whole idea is that something has to happen just once and stick in order for there to be life. Just handwaving and saying the "possibility for life being created in the particular fashion I've described is so low as to be preposterous that it's proof of God" is not sound.
I find your attempt to educate me about "science" amusing as you are taking the position of someone who is attempting to defend a theory based in mythology versus someone who is attempting to help your credibility. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with creationism per se, it's interesting, it's just that it's very hard to recreate, and having theories about things that are very difficult to reproduce or that do not imply much tangible is more akin to philosophy than anything else. Evolution, on the other hand, makes specific predictions about the nature of life. These are testable. People have theorized that evolution can account for the generation of more complicated life from simple beginnings. This is testable, and is being tested right now. Creationism is a done deal. It's over. You either believe it or you don't and it's extremely difficult to collect "evidence" for it. This makes it a difficult theory for a scientist to stand behind.
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:1, Interesting)
The old saw of adding energy providing a way around randomness failing is not too awfully useful. The Japanese Navy added a lot of energy to the battleships in Pearl Harbor, and not much other than increased entropy and tragedy resulted. What new ordering of information came from that? There are even more convincing arguments, such as no one has conceived of a way to produce the sulfur containing AA's (cys, met). And just chirality alone has never been explained. Until simple points like that are answered, the idea that life arose spontaneously is about as scientific as saying the moon is made of cheese because it looks from here like it has holes.
With the exception of designed collectors (chlorophyll, solar cells) the Sun's energy is also most often destructive. Leave your car in the sun for a couple of decades and see what the paint looks like.
Evolution makes a number of predictions which have been found to be dead wrong. Like the Miller-Urey experiments. Like the computer simulation done in the 60's (at Stanford I think) which showed the dominant survival of not the fittest organisms.
On the other hand the Bible has made prophecies over millennia that have been proven true. For example, the book of Isaiah found in the Dead Sea Scrolls from 125BC had predictions about Jesus that were absolutely correct. Daniel predicted to the day when Jesus would enter Jerusalem. The book of Job (probably the first book written in the Bible) talks about dinosaurs (not by that name, that word was coined in 1841, the KJV was translated in 1611), the hydrologic cycle, and other facts unknown until very recently.
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:5, Insightful)
> The odds are not just low, they are flat out impossible. 10^50 is considered a mathematical equivalent of impossible, and 10^123 is way beyond that.
No, p=0 is the mathematical equivalent of impossible, and there is no concept of "way beyond" impossible. You're just spouting creationist bunkum.
I know it's pointless trying to convince you, but if any lurkers are reading this and haven't thought it out before, consider what happens when you shuffle a deck of cards and then examine the resulting order. The probablility of getting that order is 1/52!, AKA 1/10^68. Clearly, 1/10^68 is not "impossible", because it happens every time someone shuffles a deck of cards.
Want "way beyond" impossible? Just add more cards. Two decks gives 1/10^167. Three gives 1/10^276. Tell me how impossible you want it, and I'll tell you how many decks of cards you need.
Unless you want p=0, which can't be done by cards - by definition.
Scientists do not posit that the first self-replicator came about via random chance, any more than a chemist reckons that it is random chance that delivers NaCl + HOH when you mix HCl + NaOH in a beaker. The universe is not a random assemblage of matter and energy; there are all manner of laws and forces that make some conformations enormously more likely than others.
Without knowing what the first self-replicator was and by what pathway it arose, your probability calculations are just numbers pulled out of your ass.
> And if there were a self-replicating protein, what would prevent it from continuing to exist today?
A planet full of life that eats proteins? An oxygen-based atmosphere? (What was I saying earlier about creationists and thinking?)
> And if gradual evolution is to be accepted, why are there no 2-5 cell creatures - why unicellular and many-cellular, no few-cellular?
Assuming this claim is even correct, what's the problem? Some cells stick together as colonies and others don't - why should we require some to stick together in colonies of an arbitrary size? Multi-cellular life is thought to have arisen via cell specialization in multicellular colonies. It's a silly parody of evolution of the theory of evolution to claim that a life form with n+1 cells arose from a lifeform with n cells, and that all the lifeforms of sizes {1, 2,
Also, large modern multicellular creatures don't have any difficulty bootstrapping themselves up from a single cell without leaving 2-5 cell intermediates lying about. Why should evolution have any difficulty doing the same thing?
> Science is not about "might be". It's about facts.
Actually, science is about providing the best possible explanation for the evidence currently at hand. When there's insufficient evidence bearing on a topic they sometimes have to rely on conjectures, or even "we don't know".
> And a simple fact is that unless the "self-replicating protein" were near-perfect in replicative abilities, it would not be able to accurately reproduce itself.
Actually, an imperfect replicator is exactly what we are looking for. Evolution doesn't happen to perfect replicators.
Also, speaking of "the" replicator may lend to misconceptions, since "the" replicator may have been a cycle of reactions involving multiple "agents". I.e., at the earliest stages of proto-life we may be looking at mixtures of reagents rather than individuals.
> And simple entropic principles would lead to its degradation into simpler parts.
Care to show the math on your entropy calculations?
Lurkers take note: creationists are tres fond of invoking entropy, so long as they don't have to define anything, measure anything, or show any mathematics. (If you ever find a creationist willing to do all that, please bring it to my attention.)
But skipping the standard creationist handwaving fare and getting back to the original post... What you are arguing here is abiogenesis, not evolution. The theory of evolution doesn't care where the original replicators came from; it merely explains the pattern of changes you see once you do have a system of imperfect replicators. (Remember what science is? We see massive evidence that life has changed over time; we try to explain it.)
And FWIW, both scientists and creationists agree that abiogenesis happened at some point in the earth's history. The only disagreements are over when it happened and what the mechanism was. If you want me to accept your made-up probabilities for chemical abiogenesis, are you willing to accept my made-up probabilities for divine abiogenesis?
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:1, Insightful)
The name is Lah. Al Lah. (Score:1)
Where did God come from?
Mario does not know where Shigeru Miyamoto (the god of Mario's universe) comes from, so how should we know any better where al-Lah came from?
Imagine a simulation running on a computer several times larger than our universe. Now imagine a college student in that universe named Albert Lah. How do you know we're not just bits in a computer (Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, The Matrix) in Al Lah's senior project?
Solved: God is Object Oriented (Score:2)
God is object oriented. He simply coded this:
self.create()
or
new self()
_________________________
oop.ismad.com
Re: Solved: God is Object Oriented (Score:1)
> God is object oriented. He simply coded this:
> self.create()
And the famous "I Am What I Am" is merely COBOL for:
Re: Solved: God is Object Oriented (Score:1)
> And the famous "I Am What I Am" is merely COBOL for: Actually, that should be an assertion rather than an assignment.
Which raises the scary possibility that the universe may someday abort on an assertion failure.
The good news is that if that ever happens the universe will immediately cease to exist, so we won't be around to fret over it.
(The bad news is that the universe might be running in the debugger, in which case we will be around for a while after it happens.)
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:4, Insightful)
> You are making a classic probstat error...
d00d! You forgot the most important part of your post, which should have gone something like this: And though it's optional, I heartily recommend adding the following disclaimer as well: But having made your bed, let's see how well you lie in it.
First, let me call to the attention of any innocents reading this post that your probability argument - like all creationist probability arguments I've ever seen - relies critically on a hidden assumption that life is a completely random assemblage of atomic components. Lurkers my want to speculate, publicly or privately, why creationists always make this (hidden) assumption; my own speculation is that it's a combinaton fo these three factors:
- the typical creationist knows exactly diddley-jack about the natural sciences, and thus couldn't assume a more realistic mechanism even if he wanted to; and
- admitting that the arrangements of the molecules in biological organisms is the result of laws and forces that bias the outcome runs a great risk of unwittingly admitting that the mechanisms proposed by the theory of evolution really work; and
- any assumption other than completely random configurations with uniform probabilities will not produce the astonomical numbers needed to impress the rubes with an otherwise silly argument.
At any rate, giving AC his desired probability model, and given that the universe exists and the matter in his protein actually exists, we find that there is a truly astronomical number of possible configurations for that matter - probably a higher number even than he calculates - with the resulting possiblility of any single one of those configurations existing - given his assumptions - being <<1/10^50, and thus "impossible". However, given that the universe and the matter in the protein does exist, we conclude that the probability that it is in one of those configurations is 1.0 - just as for the outcome of shuffling a deck of cards.So much for creationist probability arguments; they don't even rise to their own standards, let alone to the standards of science.
> You further speculate that there was a non-oxygen atmosphere in the past which the proteins arose in.
No, that's based on evidence, not speculation. For instance, the iron in all your worldly goods was accessible to human miners because it precipitated out of the oceans en masse when the atmosphere "turned over" to an oxygen-based atmosphere and oxidized it. Otherwise it would be (more or less) randomly distributed throughout the crust.
There is other evidence for our pre-oxygen atmosphere; you might want to read up on it if this sort of thing interests you and your faith doesn't rely too much on isolating yourself from facts about the world you live in.
> That's because if you don't have very accurate reproduction, you'll get random mutations which, by the laws of probstat, will degenerate most of the organisms via a mechanism known as "return to the mean".
There is no such mechanism; do not misinterpret the "law of large numbers" as a programmed directional shift. You seem to be one who knows just enough about statistics to be dangerous.
Also very importantly, do not critique the theory of evolution on the basis of a straw-model that omits an enormously important part of the theory, natural selection. (And sexual selection and all that other good stuff you'll hear about if you ever get past them metaphorical Page One in your knowledge of the theory of evolution.)
Hint: Sundayschool ain't the place to learn about it.
> You're claiming that evolution does not involve abiogenesis.
Indeed I am, and that's because it doesn't. The theory of evolution says nothing about where life came from. Terraform a planet and pack off your favorite species for a permanent visit, and you'll find that they will evolve there - just as they will if they get there instead by local abiogenesis, by human creation, or by divine creation. Ultimate origins is irrelevant to the theory of evolution; it merely needs some biological organisms to work with.
> If true (and I dispute that), then evolution needs at least as big a leap of faith as creationism does.
Not at all. It's evidence, not faith, that tells us that the universe is of finite age, and evidence, not faith, that tells us that life now exists in the universe. It follows immediately from those that abiogenesis must have happened somewhere along the way; faith does not play any role in either the premises or the conclusion.
> And again you're fudging things when you say I should accept your probabilities for divine abiogenesis.
Not at all. If you want me to accept numbers that you pulled out of your ass, then it's perfectly reasonable for me to expect you to accept numbers that I pulled out of my ass.
> Since there definitely is a God, there is no need to calculate the probability of Him existing.
That sort of argument is known as "assuming the consequent", "begging the question", or, in layman's terms, "cheating".
> Want proof? Where did all the matter, physical laws, order, information, and initial energy come from?
Not from any god. Want proof? Where did your god come from?
See, it's easy if I get to use the same low standards of evidence that creationists insist on for their own arguments.
[Lurkers please note that I don't offer that as a serious argument. Rather, I offer it as an example of how creationists will reject an argument with a logical form identical to their own arguments, if it does not lead to the "right" conclusion.]
> If evolution does not include abiogenesis, you'd better go tell your local school board - it's in the textbooks with lots of other lies about evolution.
Oddly enough, solar dynamics, kinematics, cloud formation, Turing machines, electic circuits, and a pile of other things that the theory of evolution doesn't say anything about are also to be found in textbooks. You single out abiogenesis only because of your ignorance (and presumably also because it, even more than evolution, is directly contrary to your religious beliefs).
Curiouser yet, none of those textbooks invoke invisible magicians to explain any of those other phenomena, and yet for some reason no one is writing their school boards and legislatures to protest that omission.
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:1)
P.S. - I forgot to mention that I'm still waiting for your entropy calculations.
If that's too much trouble, a simple retraction will suffice instead.
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:1, Interesting)
Do some elementary analysis; of course if you can get one protein you get its exact configuration. You at least implicitly accepted the fact that you fudged the distinction between random selection with and without replacement, so thanks for that. However in making the assertion that getting one protein has odds of one in one is nonsensical; the point is trying to get to a SPECIFIC protein (and then to 255 more of them to arrive at the smallest theoretical set for a barely functional cell). And yes, the odds are indeed far worse than I showed; in an aqueous solution the Gibbs free energy is against the hydrolysis involved in peptide bond formation (the way that two amino acids join in building a protein or polypeptide chain). And I did ignore the odds of the folding of the resulting protein being correct, and I ignored the fact that other reagents would preferentially bond to the growing chain and prevent further growth of it.
And I ignored the vast odds against chiral sugars and nucleic acids as well. In that you are absolutely right, the odds are vastly worse than this calculation shows; but this shows a vast enough number that it's clear.
You imply that some nonrandom force was at work in producing the initial proteins. You seem to deny God. So what nonliving force (since we're talking about the initial times when life did not yet exist) could produce the ordering of something so tremendously complex? Just adding energy is not sufficient as an explanation; without a guide of some form adding energy just increases entropy, not order.
Bottom line: simple probability calculations show that random chance did not make proteins that formed an initial cell. Similar calculations can be used to show the odds of mutations forming anything significant are equally unlikely. Note: these simple facts make closed minded individuals very uncomfortable, so beware of their attempts to fudge and/or obscure the facts.
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:2)
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:2)
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:2)
This is far too abstract for me. I am not asking for opposite. I am talking about *alternative theories* to the idea that life arose by *pure*chance*. We all know it is too improbable by pure chance. Now let's see if you are subtle enough to consider the other physically possible, but still not pure chance theories.
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:2)
However how many planets are there in our galaxy, many, far more than you expect. Actually there are statistics that we've more planets in the galaxy than sand corns on our beaches,
One question do you think that earth has a prefered position in the universe or galaxy? Or dou you think it is a planet like others, except that on this very beutiful planet we've life.
If you believe in god created life on earth, by putting together the first proteines, why do you think he hasen't done on it mars and venus, pluto? Don't these planets also deserve life as well earth does? Especially venus which is from size, constency so equal to earth, our sister planet. (Only venus is very, very hot, due to a recursive hothouse effect) but long time past we were very similar planets, but choosen other paths.
Also you do not need a perfect protein to be able to replicate, in the "primary-soup" as you can call it were a lot of desoxyribosenucleics (the 4 kinds of), and it's their chemical trais to copy themselfs, sure most of them copied nonsense. However one of the chemics had a chance to better copy in any way it protected itself from something, anything and that way evolution began in a very primitive form,
And still if you say god created the big bang I'm totally okay with this, and almost every physics will agree with this. Our physical laws were created with the big bang, so why shouldn't god initiated it? However before that there event there was no time, no space, nothing we can think
of.
And well things are pointing to a pre-oxygen phase. Earth was without oxygen in the beginning, and one day one of these bacteries discovered that it can use sunlight to create itself sugar and as waste product oxygen. It was a very successful organism being able to create sugar as chemical energy source itself. And the shape of earth changed radically, that may be one reason why a lot of these pre-lifeforms have vanished, proparly these couldn't stand oxygen. And some of the primary-bacteries are still there, on places where we never would have believed life exists, in example volcano exists.
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:2)
> > The opposite of chance is that it was somehow directed.
> This is far too abstract for me. I am not asking for opposite. I am talking about *alternative theories* to the idea that life arose by *pure*chance*.
The false dichotomy is one of the favorite tools in creationists' rhetorical toolkit. It usually boils down to "My strawman version of evolution can be refuted if you grant me enough factual and logical fallacies, therefore my religous sect's creation myth is true."
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:2)
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:2)
It's one of these choas theories as far I did understand. In some natural cases order comes from itself in chaotic systems!
So can you say it's different for proteins? I've profen that a simple simulation of "acids" make crystals _themselfs_.
One thing many people understand wrong about evolution is that it isn't as hard as descriped in the school books. The weak ones also survive! Just on the long time a little bit less. Without the weak ones beeing able to survive you can get evolate away from local optimums, you can only specialize. A lot of traits were suboptimal until they suddendly make sense.
You do not need perfect replication, why should it, if only 1 out of 10 replications goes fine it's still okay. In the "primary-soup" there was stuff enough to try to replicate yourself.
lso if evolution were true, and since mankind is a late development according to that theory, why is our reproductive time so stretched out?
Thats interesting indeed, and actually this only "recently" changed in the human history, in stoneage people reached aprox. an age of 20, and were stone old at the age of 25. They got children their with ~14. In middle age people reached aprox. 40, today in 70. So yes it has become stretched, why? Medicine! I don't know if I would life today without modern medicine. We don't know if evolution favors the 3rd world countries where things are going faster according to this, this change has been only so short just a moment in evolutionary time scales. In animal world there are different strategies in raising your kids, some make a lot of, not caring about them, some like us humans only have a few, requiring a lot of care for a long period of time until they are mature. Both sides have their benefits, and we're only one trait of the nature, I wouldn't say that humans have anything special.
And in an early non-oxygen atmosphere, there would be such strong UV
Might be true indeed, however you're supposing that the "creation of life" happened on the surface, on land. Thats not true, we come from the sea! Or that times the "primary-supper", yes UV may destroy NH3 moluceles. But like the ozone layer gets it's O3 destroyed and protects the ground, only the surface of primary-sea was exposed to UV light. By the destruction of the NH UV was filtered on the sea-surface like UV is filtered today in the ozone layer. Life started to exist deep down in the sea, and stayed there for a long time, until the first ones checked out land.
The simplest *possible* lifeform (Score:2)
Today's life is probably a poor indicator because competition exists now, where it did *not* at the beginning. Competition may favor complexity.
Thus, any argument that says X random molecues must come together is shear guessing about the number X.
The bottom line is that nobody knows, and possibly never will, for the chances of finding the very first life form is highly highly remote.
I do agree that much in this universe requires the Anthropic Principle to explain things, and it can also be applied to protein combinations, regardless of how improbable they are.
I do find, however, the Anthropic principle a simpler explanation than a creator, because the creator theory does not explain how the creator got complex. It is an extra middle-man in the chain. One could just as easily say that the "Anthropic Engine" always existed. But, an anthropic engine is simpler than a creator still, so if one is to pick the simplest explanation, then Anthropic wins in my book.
Re: The simplest *possible* lifeform (Score:2)
> The bottom line is that nobody knows what the simplest *possible* "starter" life-form is.
To pursue that notion a bit further, notice that in order to calculate the probability of abiogenesis honestly, one would have to calculate the probability, not of some modern complex molecule arising by chance, nor even of just the simplest possible self-replicator arising by chance, but rather of all possible self-replicators, both the simple and the complex, and also of all possible paths to the construction of each, including pure random chance as well as the principled behavior of chemical and mineral entities in all possible early-earth environments. Then the probability of natural abiogensis is 1.0 minus the probability that none of the above happened.
And even that is oversimplified, since it ignores the rather important bayesian prior, "given that life now exists". (Which I, for one, wouldn't begin to know how to incorporate into the calculations - though it's plain to see that incorporating it must raise the probability rather than diminishing it.)
Clearly, all creationist probability arguments fall far short of providing the necessary calculations. Our current knowledge does not even allow us to enumerate all the {molecules x paths x environments} that need to be calculated for, let alone to actually discover the correct numbers and run up the calculations.
And that's just the problem with the probability argument before they start applying the logical fallacies to their made-up numbers.
Re:The simplest *possible* lifeform (Score:2)
It was probably just an "educated guess". Nobody knows what the simplest paths are for sure.
Some even speculate that life evolved in outer space, and that nova scatter it all over, like a Galactic Johny Appleseed.
And, there is still the anthropic probability spaces which may be vast, perhaps infinite.
Re: The simplest *possible* lifeform (Score:2)
> If you had read my earlier post you would have seen that ...
I did read your earlier posts, and all I learned from them is that (a) you don't know squat about how the universe works, and that (b) you're eager to accept any argument, however lame, that offers a conclusion that you agree with.
For example:
> Regardless, one key point here. I am simply pointing out that there are major, major problems with random chance providing a path to abiogenesis. Despite your verbal posturing, you have yet to provide a solid, experimentally proven alternative to random chance or special creation. Since random chance has been demonstrated as beyond possible as a source of abiogenesis, the alternative that's left is creation.
Despite your verbal posturing, you have offered nothing but an argument constructed by applying bad logic to made-up numbers, and an auxiliary charge that "science doesn't know all the details, so it's wrong", and while you are so eagerly pointing out that <mote>I don't have any experimental proof of evolution</mote> you have been cluelessly ignoring the fact that <beam>you haven't offered even the faintest hint of evidence for your own beliefs</beam>.
It's no coincidence that creationists rely so heavily on bogus probability arguments and other "science might be wrong" rhetoric instead of actually providing evidence to support their own beliefs. It's because they don't have any evidence.
> I'm perfectly comfortable with that
Lots of people are "perfectly comfortable" with their delusions. In fact, most people subscribe to delusions because those delusions make them more comfortable.
> and those who can follow probstat and logic will come to that as well.
A simple observation refutes that claim as well. (Hint: When arguing for a pseudo-science, avoid making claims that are amenable to observation.)
Re: The simplest *possible* lifeform (Score:2)
> We know a lot about what it takes to have a minimum self-replicating organism
Actually, we don't have a clue.
> In the analysis I used evolutionists conclusions of how many proteins would be in an absolute minimum self-reproducing system. In the early 70s there was a paper which said 239 proteins, more recent papers have said 256.
Please give us the bibliographic information for these papers so we can look at them and see for ourselves what they actually say. You have already demonstrated an ignorance of science that makes it seem highly unlikely that you have ever read any papers of this sort, let alone actually understood what they said.
I presume that you got these "facts" from a creationist Web site rather than from actually reading the papers. Sadly, creationist cult literature has a notorious track record of misrepresenting what scientific publications actually say, and should never be trusted without going to the primary source and verifying the claims. (Fence-sitters are encouraged to visit talk.origins and start a thread asking for examples of creationist misrepresentations of the literature.)
> Just one protein is however past mathematical impossibility
The primary trait that groups creationism with the other pseudo-sciences is that its proponents continue using arguments after they have heard them refuted. Your numbers are bogus, your model of the universe is flawed, and your "logic" is idiotic. You haven't even made a good case for "improbability", let alone for "impossibility".
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:1)
They're called "prions". You find them in mad cows (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), and very possibly in people (Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease). Even today.
Re: proof? yes, of some things (Score:1)
I'm a creationist...
I ask the following question honestly, rather than as a sarcastic remark: Do you consider creationism to be a branch of science?
If you believe that the origin of life is not a subject that is amenable to scientific inquiry, fair enough. But, in my opinion, a believer in "scientific" creationism should expect it to explain the same observations that are so troubling for the evolutionary model. However, I myself am afraid that the answer from scientific creationism will be, "Because God wanted it that way."
Re:If that's proof... (Score:1)
Re:If that's proof... (Score:1)
Re: proof (Score:2)
> could this be living proof of the evolutionary path that aquatic creatures took to make it to land many millions (billions) of years ago? looks like it to me
Not "proof", but a good demonstration of principle.
In fact this is hardly news among biologists. Things like the mudskipper and other "walking fish" are well known to them, however ignorant we outsiders may be, and biologists have long held that tetrapods ("four-leggers") evolved from what they call "lobe-finned fish", which are distinguished from "ray-finned fish" because their fins are fleshy lobes with muscles and bones that are somewhat similar to the limb bones of amphibians, dinosaurs, mammals, etc., quite unlike the simple spines that make up the fins of the "ray-finned fish". Lobe-finned fish exist both in the wild today and in the fossil record, and the oldest fossil amphibians have skeletons that show only very minor differences from lobe-finned fish of the same era.
Current thought is that the "proto-limbs" (if you will excuse the hindsight) evolved for underwater use and just happened to be convenient for exploiting the resources on dry land, rather than evolving as a direct adaptation to life on dry land. Indeed, if you watch nature documentaries then once in a great while you will see a modern lobe-finned fish in action, using its fins/limbs to push itself along the bottom or through a tangle of vegetation, without the least sign of awkwardness.
Re:proof (Score:1)
MmmMMmm... Ugly fish. Yummy. (Score:3, Interesting)
could this be living proof of the evolutionary path that aquatic creatures took to make it to land many millions (billions) of years ago? looks like it to me
The fish is a delicacy in Asian cooking; I've had them.
I get *hell* from customs for sneaking Mighty Taco [mightytaco.com] across the border, and yet these nasty things are available in any large Asian community?
Something's not right there. How is it that these were allowed to be imported in the first place?
It's a sign of either an intellectual failure or starvation (I'll leave the intellectual failure with customs and starvation with my Chinese friends) that those things would be considered a delicacy, anyway.
Bitching about Kanada Kustoms Kommies (Score:2)
> I get *hell* from customs for sneaking Mighty Taco [mightytaco.com] across the border
Leave the baggie of pot out and they'll wave you right through.
I wish.
Young guy, dressed either in a shirt and tie or in jeans, white T-shirt and leather jacket, driving a 1976 Dodge Ram, often with big chunks of a cut-up Toyota in the back, going through customs:
Grrrr.... Nothing makes you feel better about living in one of the highest taxed countries in the world than being searched by customs and treated like a criminal every time you come home, while you're gladly welcomed by geniunely friendly customs people on the American side.
Only time I've ever had trouble with US customs was the week after that guy tried to take the ferry to Seattle with the trunkload of explosives. The guy passed a cursory mirror under the truck, then stopped with a surprised look on his face, staring into the mirror: "Shit, boy, is that a nine and quarter axle?" He waved me through.
Re:proof (Score:1)
Re:proof (Score:2)
evolution doesn't have objectives; the fish is not part of a trajectory that will lead to land-living. evolution works by immediate advantage in terms of number of offspring. it would only be a path in retrospect.
Re:proof (Score:1)
Re: proof (Score:2)
> If evolution is to have any scientific meaning whatsoever it must have predictive value. Mere retrospection is no more valuable than claiming that God created everything 6000 years ago.
I don't know whether I agree with that, but at any rate it doesn't matter because the theory of evolution does have predictive value. E.g., every time a new genome is sequenced it tells us some things to expect and some things not to expect. It also tells us which rocks to look at for trilobite fossils in and which ones to skip over, how big the hind legs on a proto-whale discovered at a given time depth will be, etc.
Just because the ToE is a "historical science", doesn't mean that new observations are not possible, nor that it doesn't make predictions.
Re:I agree with this post, but.... (Score:1)
Not from this habitat (Score:2, Funny)
Ugly (Score:2)
The big question is, with the level of ugly on that guy, who would WANT to keep one? Live or otherwise. It don't look like good eatin' either.
Re:Ugly (Score:1)
-techwolf
Great! (Score:3, Funny)
Get in my belly, little fishy!
Roadkill (Score:1)
Walking, Huh!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
My favorite exotic species (Score:3, Interesting)
I really love the idea of the Parrots in NYC, there is apparently only one colony of them living on top of Statium lights on the northern end of the city. Only a little over a hundred, no one is quite sure where they came from, but they've been there since the 60's or 70's. There has been some talk of killing them off but I think few think they could spread very far.
Re:My favorite exotic species (Score:1)
Introduced species (Score:2)
Climates like Florida have been afflicted with a similar species of fish. The just wiggled out of their pond and down the road to the river, where they wreaked havoc on the ecosystem. Likewise for water hyacinths, toads and giant snails. There's a long list: Rabbits and starlings in Australia, Cats and rats in New Zealand, Variola in the Americas.
As space travel becomes more of a reality, this becomes more of a serious issue. If we wipe out some species on another planet, that is not good and some here may actually care, but none are forced to care. If we bring something home, then we are forced to care.
Why do they win over native? (Score:2)
Unless, perhaps, that some introduced species have survival tricks that local ones were not able to evolve on their own. (What do they call that in AI and game thoery, local miximum rut?)
I wonder if anybody has documented how this happened in specific cases.
Re:Why do they win over native? (Score:2)
IANAB (I am not a biologist) but it is probably not a problem of local optima as in AI, but of not having enough generations to adapt to the change / new problem.
For specific, but simple, examples you can look at the problem of rats in the Galopogos Islands and New Zealand. Or cats any where you have birds that nest on the ground or in burrows. The rats reproduce faster than the birds they prey on, giving the birds no time to change their hard-coded nesting habits. It's not a matter of not evolving, it's a matter of not having time to adapt.
Re:My favorite exotic species (Score:1)
resilent fish (Score:1, Interesting)
She was afraid it would eat the goldfish, so she had it transferred to a nieghbors pond where it currently lives.
Theres no point to this post, I just wanted some crackhead moderator to waste a mod point putting it in -1 land.
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:1)
Re:So... (Score:3, Funny)
... and says 'Barkeep, do you sell fish food?'
*****The bartender looks at him sideways and says 'no, this is a bar. Bars don't sell fish food.'
'Oh' says the fish. 'Bye!'.
The fish comes back the next day. 'Barkeep!', he says, 'do you sell fish food yet?'
*****'No, and we don't plan to' said the bartender. 'This is a bar. Bars don't sell fish food.'
'Right' says the fish. 'See ya!'
The next day the fish is back again. He goes up to the bar and says 'I'll have a fish food on the rocks'.
*****By this time the bartender is quite annoyed. 'This is a bar. It doesn't sell fish food. It never will. If you come back here, I'm going to nail you to the door by the tail.'
'No need to be angry' says the fish. 'Bye!'
The next day the fish goes up to the bar, and the bartender is ready for him. 'What do you want?'
'I know this is a bar,' says the fish, 'but do you sell nails?'
The bartender is taken aback. 'No... why?'
'Excellent' says the fish. 'Do you sell fish food?'
Re:So... (Score:1, Funny)
A man walked into a bar and said, "Ouch!" (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry to be a wet blanket, but how many bars do sell nails? Just because the bar does not sell nails does not mean the bar does not have nails (and other tools).
Re:A man walked into a bar and said, "Ouch!" (Score:1)
I've quite a few people in bars talking about getting nailed....
No no no... (Score:2, Funny)
On the fourth day, the fish goes up to the bar, asking for fish food again. Bartender says, "look, this is a bar. We sell liquor. What ever gave you the idea you could get fish food here?"
The fish replies, "I thought my best bet would be to go to the same place that Mr. Higgenbotham over there goes. Someone told me his eating habits were the same as mine."
The bartender says, "Mr. Higgenbotham? He's just an old lush. He comes in here every night and gets sloshed."
The fish looks at the bartender, looks at Mr. Higgenbotham, then looks back at the bartender. Then he slaps his fin against his forehead. "Oh, THAT'S what that meant!"
Variation on the Kangaroo one. (Score:1)
Fish orders himself a beer, drinks it, gets up to leave.
He asks the bartender "How much do I owe?"
"Ten bucks"
The fish does a little double take, but pays up. While he's paying, the bartender leans over and says, "You know, we don't see too many walking fish coming in here."
The fish says, "At thes prices you won't see too many more."
Well - (Score:1)
link to picture (Score:1)
Re:link to picture (Score:3, Funny)
evolution (Score:4, Funny)
Re:evolution (Score:1)
Bah... (Score:2, Funny)
*rimshot*
Re:Bah... (Score:1)
But when Mr. Smith went to Washington, and was surrounded by all the professional politicians, he was the fish out of water!
Wrong category (Score:2, Funny)
Knock knock (Score:1)
Re:Knock knock (Score:1)
The important thing is not to PANIC (Score:1)
Re:The important thing is not to PANIC (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Thank you! (Score:2)
Not only a fine scientist, apparently, the man was a fine and amusing author, as well!
Off to my library I fly!
Whoosh!
(not a joke. I fully intend to read his stuff. It was best seller material when it came out THEN, so it should prove readable to us, now, fairly easily)
Good reading in science (Score:2)
No need to go so far as the library. You can find his books here [upenn.edu].
Re:Good reading in science (Score:2)
I have been waiting and waiting for 2.0 to come out. Darwin is slower than the Harry Potter author.
Re:In the words of Darwin himself... (Score:2)
Flying squirrles suggest an intermediate form for flying mammles. Flying squirrles have large flaps of skin between the leg and arm that they use to glide from tree to tree, saving the dangerous ground trip.
If there were more pressure to fly better or longer, than one could envision the birth of wings.
I Ate This Fish. (Score:1, Interesting)
Anyway, it was greasy, but pretty good.
I'm not making this up. This news thing makes it even creepier. Jeezus.
Zoober
Now... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Now... (Score:2)
The context is left as an exercise for the reader..
Aren't they in Texas as well? (Score:2)
Sorry if this is a duplicate post. Caffeine hasn't it made it to my fingers yet. Anyway, I remember reading about something similar happening in East Texas years ago. I dunno if I buy the report I read or not tho. The story talked about the fish stalking small dogs. Oh well, I suppose this means you go fising in your lawn now.
Nope. (Score:1)
Exotic species indeed! (Score:1)
http://www.uncoveror.com/chupa2.htm
http://www.uncoveror.com/chupa3.htm
http://www.uncoveror.com/chupa4.htm
Germany now threatened by American 'exotics' (Score:2)
Please people, the next time your pet outgrows its aquarium, think before you release it into the wild.
Re:Germany now threatened by American 'exotics' (Score:1)
Asian fish smarter than American fish? (Score:1)
But do they taste good? (Score:2)
ChinaMan (Score:1)
Re:ChinaMan (Score:1)
There are plenty of things that come from China which are not that great (think skinning snakes in restaurants while they're still wriggling, drinking dog's blood etc.)
Anyway, this story is stating that the fish is disgusting, not China.
IMHO, the fish is not disgusting. It's l33t - it 0wn3d the USA's rivers.
I'm more scared by... (Score:1)
Re:I'm more scared by... (Score:1)
I guess little Ralph Willgum said it best:
Bart: What do they taste like Ralph?
Ralph: It tastes like.. burning. [snpp.com]
Re:C: A Dead Language? by pwpbot (Score:2)