Charles Darwin to receive apology from the Church of England for rejecting evolution

[Marco Pontello]

Originally Posted by Alan Clarke

I’m still baffled how so many members of this forum, being computer programmers, believe that information can arise on its own as Darwin suggests.

I'm instead still baffled that there are sane persons, and especially programmers, that firmly believe in what, to me, are just some elaborated fairy tales, that exists in so many and sometimes contraddicting variations, around the world.

I mean, there is really someone who can listen to this and clap??!
YouTube - Crazy Preacher Kid
Well, so it seems. At least the people present in that church. Probably more. For me is nonsense, for them not.
As the french says: "C'est la vie"!

I don't really try to convince them otherways, but some times I feel difficult to not laugh, pardon me. I'm sorry, but I bet you or anyone other have done the same, at some point of his life, maybe about someone that was speaking to himself, or to his personal ghosts, or invisible friends.
But I'm not interested in debating this.

Marco Pontello gave an example of a program called Core War which had some magical ability to create information but he overlooked that the program was designed by humans of a higher order.

Sorry Alan, but you seem to not have understood what's Core War.
So, in turn, you have not understood that it have been shown that's possible to produce working Redcode (see Assembly) programs (see warriors, in Core War terms) with an evolving system. I mean, it's not some kind of abstract experiment: there's some non-human generated, runnable code proving it.

Bye!

[Alan Clarke]

To Chris Holbrook: Okay, here is what I propose: Lets build a computer model which will simulate the building of a protein by randomly selecting from a set of 20 amino acids. I think this is fair game because Darwin’s theory dealt with living things making transitions from less complex to more complex without the need for a designer. Now, about 40-50 amino acids are required to make a functional part of a protein. Don’t let all the biologic terms scare you because all that matters is your program simulate the mathematical probability of such a protein assembling by chance. To make things even simpler, I will be satisfied if you can randomly generate the following sentence: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” This will be good because the sentence length is similar to the protein’s length. There are 18 unique Latin characters in this sentence but let’s use the full 26 ASCII characters a-z since other non-essential ingredients were contributing in the “primordial soup” environment. I already started the program for you in PBWin/PBForms and I’ll be happy to post the source, but if you want to build it from the ground up or do it in PBCC, I don’t care. Here is what it could look like:

Just start randomly generating characters and if you get a match on the first letter “I” then put a tick in your progress bar. If you randomly get a “In”, then put two ticks. Remember that this “primordial soup” is always jumbling things up so if you achieve “In the beg”, then this protein will be non-functional and you’ll have to start over, but keep the best achievements on the progress bar viewable. More suggestions:
1) Make full use of assembly routines, register variables, etc., to speed things up. We can actually simulate millions of years, so take advantage of it.
2) Run the program on the fastest computer you can find.
3) If you can think of some special, never-before-seen routine to speed things up, by all means, include it, because that’s what this is all about, to make it happen.

Chris, I’m kind of getting excited about this because the potential for using your program (if you succeed) could be extended to password recovery, quality-control simulators, etc. In all seriousness, I am fully with you and will not be mocking as you progress in your work. The last thing you need is some religious heckler stifling the seed that Darwin planted.

Future potential problems: The information output of the program, “In the beginning God created. . .”, doesn’t really mean anything without an interpreter. It may be necessary to randomly generate a program that can make sense of it before we can call the Intelligence Generator, “intelligent”. But don’t worry about that for now. If we can get halfway there, maybe the rest will be downhill.

I want to say, “May God Be with You”, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of letting things happen on their own, so I’ll just say, Good Luck!

[Rodney Hicks]

Hey, I took the challenge, it's too late to start including rules, conditions, targets or anything else. You can not guide evolution, and you can only grasp its effects by its results. It has no time line that humans establish for it to meet. It sets(evolves) its own, rules, conditions, targets, and all else. Anything else is not going to be evolutionary, although it may be revolutionary.

[Gary Barnes]

Alan,
Could you be more patronizing, simplistic and inflexible?
I think that you can if you try harder

By the way.

#COMPILE EXE
#DIM ALL

$PROTEIN = "THIS IS REALLY REALLY SILLY BUT WTH LETS DO IT ANYWAY"

FUNCTION PBMAIN () AS LONG
LOCAL newprotein AS STRING
LOCAL lenprotein, index, char, pflag(),iterations AS LONG

lenprotein = LEN($PROTEIN)
DIM pflag(1 TO lenprotein)
newprotein = STRING$(lenprotein,$NUL)

RANDOMIZE TIMER
DO
char = ASC("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ",RND(1,27))
index = RND(1,lenprotein)
IF char = ASC($PROTEIN,index) THEN
   MID$(newprotein,index,1) = CHR$(char)
   PRINT newprotein, iterations
END IF
INCR iterations
SLEEP 0
LOOP UNTIL newprotein = $PROTEIN

PRINT
PRINT "ALL DONE - in only" + STR$(iterations) + " iterations"

WAITKEY$
END FUNCTION

It takes between 6000 and 8000 iterations to solve it.
It is called the "Brute Force Method", much like your arguments

Be my guest, if you can use the code in ground breaking work in cryptography, or password breaking, don't be shy.

My protein is over 50 characters long with 27 possible 'amino acids'.

Next (By that I mean - please go away)

I am sure that you overlooked this small fact, but the challenge you offer is impossible to solve.
Only because you didn't think it through properly.
You see, your "Protein" which is “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” contains lower case, upper case characters, spaces and a full stop.
The range of "Amino Acids" that you offer is from "a" to "z", which CLEARLY isn't enough to allow any solution at all.
More properly, the range should be "A" to "Z" and "a" to "z" and "." and $SPC which is 54 ascii characters, not 26 as you have offered.

Just thought I should point this out to you.

I am aware that the problem that you posed is a little more complex with lets see len(yourstring)^26 different combinations, with correspondingly less permutations.
Still, a respectfully large number to churn through.
In any case, as I pointed out above, the problem you have posed is not solvable within your own definition of it.

You may be aware that amino acids cannot combine randomly, they actually have preferred combination's that they will naturally form themselves into.
So given that amino acid a will only bond with acids b,c and p and so on for the other possible acids, where are your rules for combining the randomly generated letters above.

If you are going to pose a problem that is supposed to be an analogy of the real world, then play fair.
Not only should it be solvable (which your problem isn't), but you should enumerate the rules otherwise all that you are doing is rolling a large number of 26 sided dice and hoping that you get your pet phrase.

[Alan Clarke]

Gary, your submission is absolutely priceless! I hope everyone reading this forum can understand the Powerbasic programming language, but if not, let me explain. Notice right at the beginning, Gary makes the declaration

$PROTEIN = "THIS IS REALLY REALLY SILLY BUT WTH LETS DO IT ANYWAY"

Why did he make this declaration? This is the goal he set for himself that he wanted to achieve randomly. Can you imagine a bunch of amino acids jostling about in a primordial soup setting a goal for themselves? Everywhere you see a $PROTEIN reference, Gary is checking the end result to see if he is there yet. How does anyone or anything know what the value of a random iteration is going to be if it hasn’t been created yet? So Gary’s model fails to represent the creation of a protein. For this reason, I proposed a model that will begin generating characters randomly not knowing where it is going. We know what the model must achieve because we have already been created (or evolved as you say). So Gary, please put

IF $PROTEIN = "THIS IS REALLY REALLY SILLY BUT WTH LETS DO IT ANYWAY" THEN PRINT “SUCCESS!"

at the end of your program instead of the beginning.

Gary did point out one problem with my original proposal in that I allowed only for the lower case characters a-z, but overlooked that my “In the beginning…” sentence had upper case, spaces, and a period. I did this out of generosity to make your goal more attainable, but erred, so I’ll modify the challenge. Try to randomly obtain in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth which is all lower case with spaces and no period.

[Dave Stanton]

I think that the likelihood of creation of all possible life forms is orders of magnitude greater than the creation of even one god.

[Rodney Hicks]

Okay, challenge taken.

I repeat,

Hey, I took the challenge, it's too late to start including rules, conditions, targets or anything else.

So, why are you modifying after it has been accepted?
Are you trying to control evolution?
What makes you think that evolution has targets?

[Gary Barnes]

Alan
I appreciate the grace and good humour inherent in your reply, and I would like to apologise if it seemed as though I was playing the man instead of the ball, no offence was intended.

But you still haven't approached the main issues in my post.
Ignore the code, it is and was trivial.
What rules govern the relationship between your hypothetical amino acids?
As I pointed out, without rules, it just becomes an enormous number of random numbers generated.

As I hope you know, nothing in nature is ever spontaneously generated, it is all based upon innumerable incremental changes.
Enormous chalk deposits form from millions of years of the accretion of microscopic animals. They didn't just appear.
Coral Reefs take thousands of years to form, once again formed by the remains of millions of tiny animals compressed to form the rock hard coral.
The dust on the moon is the result of billions of years of bombardment by the solar wind and meteorites.

The point is that all of these things resulted from incremental change, none of it was spontaneously generated.

Examination of the Human Genome shows large numbers of genes that humans have in common with a large number of other living things.
It shows evidence of a slow accumulation of incremental changes.
For example humans, chimpanzees, bonobos' and gorillas differ genetically by only a few percent. This goes a long way towards establishing a common ancestry for them all.

When a human fetus is developing, it appears to go through several stages that seem far from human, a fish like creature with a definite tail is one stage in the gestation of a child.
If humans were created in one day, why does this happen?
Surely there is a more efficient way to go about this.

Why is there an appendix? It serves no useful purpose.

If there was a creator, why did he do such a lousy job with humans?
The design of the female pelvis isn't really suited for delivering such big babies, why are our knees and joints so fragile?

Why are our immune systems so easily fooled by viruses?
If you want to see evolution in action, look at how the the Aids and Influenza viruses have changed themselves.
There is a clear documented progression from one type another, with differences so profound that they cannot be regarded as the same virus.

Look at the finches on the Galapagos islands, they all have demonstrably the same root stock, but have become so differentiated over time in order to fit their own unique, local environments that they can no longer successfully interbreed with each other. This is an example of progressive adaptation and survival of the ones most fitted to their environment.
It became obvious to Darwin, and his reasoning is eloquently explained in his book.

Anyway, enough is enough, I still think that your proposed project is untenable because your model is so far from a realistic model of what you are trying to simulate that all it is is an exercise in random number generation and thus of little value.

Because real things like chemical reactions operate within fixed boundaries or rules (valencies and so on), any attempt to simulate them must also have analogous rules. If these were part of your project, you might be surprised how quickly the desired result could be achieved.

Amino acids and proteins are formed by words of a sort because some combination's are way more likely to occur than others. This fact alone decreases the randomness that you refer to.

If each word in your phrase is a stable structure for example, it won't take long to build your phrase.

But in the end it proves nothing, because it merely a simulation and bears no relationship to the real world.

Bye

[Alan Clarke]

So, why are you modifying after it has been accepted?
Are you trying to control evolution?
What makes you think that evolution has targets?

Rodney, I proposed a model after Chris Holbrook requested I do so:

Perhaps you would take the time to carefully consider your own proposal and publish rules, an objective, and criteria for success in this challenge.

I'm not trying to control the methodology of your model. Do it anyway you want. All I know is what the end result is: We exist and there is life. So take any path you want to get there. I'm making it easy for you since I'm not even requiring that your end result has life. Create a dead one for me. I don't think evolution has targets as you accuse me of saying. I don't think for a minute that random mutations have a goal. So in your model, why don't you incorporate "survival of the fittest through natural selection"? If you randomly generate "in the begi" then discard it (let it die) and make another attempt at something viable. If you say evolution has no goal and I'm limiting the outcome to "in the beginning god created the heaven and earth" then choose something different, anything you want, but just make sure it is equivalently complex, because that is what Darwin proposed: Increased complexity through random mutations and natural selection. If you discard my request for equivalent complexity and present something like 11001100 for the outcome, then I don’t think even your evolutionist friends will be impressed. Remember, you must be a good representative for your colleagues. If you don’t want to follow any guidelines and make something to impress all, then go ahead and make your presentation. We’ll judge its success at that time to how well it represents the accepted evolutionary model.

[Rodney Hicks]

This is good.

All I know is what the end result is: We exist and there is life.

you must be a good representative for your colleagues.

Why?
How?

[Alan Clarke]

Answer to Gary Barnes.

What rules govern the relationship between your hypothetical amino acids?

It isn’t my task to describe the relations of the amino acids to one another. You can simulate these in your program if you understand them. If the rules slow down your simulator then drop them because I want to give you every benefit. What I can tell you is the order of magnitude of complexity you must achieve to mirror the end result: a small protein molecule of about 50 elements. I’m bending over backwards allowing you to take shortcuts such as running the simulator on a 3GHz CPU which is probably a much faster oscillation than the mixing of primordial soup waters.

As I pointed out, without rules, it just becomes an enormous number of random numbers generated.

Please explain why interim “rules” are important. Why can’t we measure success by looking at the complexity of the end result? If I bend the rules such as discounting the need for using upper case characters and periods, then the model is less exact but IT IS IN YOUR FAVOR! If we proceed with this less exacting model and still can’t achieve equivalent complexity (a string of 50 chars), we’ll know there is no way in the world its going to happen if we account for all of your “rules”.

As I hope you know, nothing in nature is ever spontaneously generated, it is all based upon innumerable incremental changes.

Then why did Stephen Jay Gould propose punctuated equilibrium? It was because he saw leaps in the geologic record. The Cambrian explosion for example was troubling to uniformitarianists. To label it as an “explosion” doesn’t explain anything. Giving something a name is often a pretense for understanding.

Enormous chalk deposits form from millions of years of the accretion of microscopic animals. They didn't just appear.

If this is true, then why are their whole vertical whale skeletons intersecting your million layers of deposits? Did the exposed part of the skeleton remain undisturbed for millions of years on a turbulent sea coast while each layer of deposit slowly covered it?

Coral Reefs take thousands of years to form, once again formed by the remains of millions of tiny animals compressed to form the rock hard coral.

Are you aware that your view is not shared by all Australians? Click here. Sure, I’ll allow for several thousand years but not more than 4400. A world-wide flood probably destroyed all reefs at that time. Bye the way, the Biblical flood model handles polystrate fossils much better than your model.

The dust on the moon is the result of billions of years of bombardment by the solar wind and meteorites.

The moon is receding from the Earth at a rate such that if you interpolated backwards billions of years, the moon would have been too close to the Earth to survive as a separate entity. See here.

Examination of the Human Genome shows large numbers of genes that humans have in common with a large number of other living things.

This is an intentional design feature allowing us to digest plants and meat because of the similar molecular structure. Jaguars and Volkswagens both have rubber wheels and lug nuts therefore Jaguars evolved from Volkswagens is your logic.

For example humans, chimpanzees, bonobos' and gorillas differ genetically by only a few percent. This goes a long way towards establishing a common ancestry for them all.

Komatsu and Caterpillar excavators are almost identical. The Japanese saw that Caterpillar had a good design so they borrowed it. Just because things are similar doesn’t mean that one evolved from the other. The creator sometimes chose similar structures for the arm and hands because the design works well.

When a human fetus is developing, it appears to go through several stages that seem far from human, a fish like creature with a definite tail is one stage in the gestation of a child.

On the first day of gestation all species look like a ball since it’s only a single cell, therefore everything is related? I mean heck, the moon is a ball, so we probably evolved from it, but tall skinny people evolved from trees. Sir Francis Bacon proposed we divide science into the study of “gold things” like hay or sunlight reflecting from children’s faces. Then another branch would deal with “moist things”. The infatuation with shapes, sizes, and textures can quickly get you nowhere.

Why is there an appendix? It serves no useful purpose.

This non-Christian web site explains it better than me. This was my first hit on a Google search for “use of appendix”. Gary, I don’t want to sound critical but are you keeping up with current information?

If there was a creator, why did he do such a lousy job with humans? The design of the female pelvis isn't really suited for delivering such big babies, why are our knees and joints so fragile?

Gary, I think you are asking the wrong questions. The question is, “Why did man do such a lousy job of obeying God?” It’s kind of like a pregnant teenage girl asking, “Why did this have to happen to me?” Originally man was created without these problems, our gene pool was extremely rich and our life span was infinite. It’s when we sinned that our life was shortened to 1000 yrs., then to 800, 700, and so on to about 70 presently.

Amino acids and proteins are formed by words of a sort because some combination's are way more likely to occur than others. This fact alone decreases the randomness that you refer to. If each word in your phrase is a stable structure for example, it won't take long to build your phrase.

Your argument is thus: Instead of using the 26 letters a-z, let’s start with 8 word elements: [in] [the] [beginning] [god] [created] [heaven] [and] [earth], then, see how long it takes to assemble the entire sentence randomly using these fewer elements. Gary, I’m sorry but you don’t have this luxury unless you are a Darwinian theist that believes God provided everything initially then later used evolution to improve upon it. But this is so hodge-podge and self-contradictory that I doubt you are so.

Because of time constraints, I haven’t answered your every question but maybe it is better this way. I think you would be much more satisfied to query your creator.

Luke 11:9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

[Marco Pontello]

Originally Posted by Alan Clarke

If this is true, then why are their whole vertical whale skeletons intersecting your million layers of deposits?

Maybe because it wasn't intersecting them?

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC335.html

The fossil was not vertical. It was 40 to 50 degrees off horizontal, and the fossil was oriented parallel to the strata. In other words, the whale was horizontal when buried. The strata were later uplifted and folded into their present orientation.

DOH!

I remember the times Eric tried to follow the traces of some similar claims made by over-cited creationists sources (fresh bones come to mind), only to find in each case that they where simply out-of context citations, or just plain bad faith manipulations, etc. They don't became truth simply by repeating them.

May I see a pattern here?

Bye!

[Alan Clarke]

Don't get too excited. A perfectly horizontal whale fossil is about 6 feet high, so for it to become buried in diatomacious soil we need at least 6 feet of deposit in a short period of time. Why, Gary said it was millions of years of deposits accumulating slowly. If we can get 6 feet in 1-2 weeks, we're going to have 28,000 miles of it in 1 million years. So you'll have to revise your model to have it covered completely in a short period of time, then slow the depositions down for the remaining millions of years so it doesn't get too deep. What a convoluted mess of a model! I'll stick with my original model of Noah's flood.

[Marco Pontello]

You're welcome! An ark loaded with animals is clearly a much more reasonable model to start with!

[Gary Barnes]

Ok Alan,
If you say so.
Cheers