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Evolution’s Appeal

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Scientific problems with evolution don’t really matter. This genre of thought scratches too many itches to let science bring it down. Traditionally those itches have mainly been theological and philosophical. Now, as the evolutionary narrative subsumes human nature, new itches emerge. Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist, provides a peek into this latest addition to evolution’s appeal. This quote appears in a fancy, inside cover advertisement run by the John Templeton Foundation, in the May 2009 Scientific AmericanRead more
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Off topic: I found this fairly interesting reference for the probability of the formation of just one 101 amino acid in water: Abiogenic Origin of Life: A Theory in Crisis The synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids from small molecule precursors represents one of the most difficult challenges to the model of prebiological evolution. There are many different problems confronted by any proposal. Polymerization is a reaction in which water is a product. Thus it will only be favored in the absence of water. The presence of precursors in an ocean of water favors depolymerization of any molecules that might be formed. Careful experiments done in an aqueous solution with very high concentrations of amino acids demonstrate the impossibility of significant polymerization in this environment. A thermodynamic analysis of a mixture of protein and amino acids in an ocean containing a 1 molar solution of each amino acid (100,000,000 times higher concentration than we inferred to be present in the prebiological ocean) indicates the concentration of a protein containing just 100 peptide bonds (101 amino acids) at equilibrium would be 10-338 molar. Just to make this number meaningful, our universe may have a volume somewhere in the neighborhood of 1085 liters. At 10-338 molar, we would need an ocean with a volume equal to 10229 universes (100, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000) just to find a single molecule of any protein with 100 peptide bonds. So we must look elsewhere for a mechanism to produce polymers. It will not happen in the ocean. http://origins.swau.edu/papers/life/chadwick/default.htmlbornagain77
March 29, 2010
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To me, the vice that removed evolutionary biology from any consideration as a science was its practitioners' repeated refusal to denounce the further reaches of evolutionary psychology - like the Big Bazooms Theory of human evolution or the Ooga! Ooga! Big Spenders! theory of human evolution. Look, there is nothing so stupid that it could not be maintained by an evolutionary psychologist. And I shall shortly sponsor a contest on this subject. I will dare anyone to come up with a theory so stupid that it will not be considered respectable in such circles. O'Leary
March 29, 2010
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