Every living organism on Earth uses the information storing properties of either DNA or RNA to store its genetic code. This is what makes life and heredity possible. The human genome is estimated to contain around 3.2 billion base pairs. A base pair in DNA is a specific pairing of one of the four base nucleotides with its complement: Adenine (A), Cytosine (C), Guanine (G), and Thymine (T). These bases form specific pairs. A pairs with T and G pairs with C.
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For simplicity we will ignore RNA so the genome for any living thing (that uses DNA) can be represented as a series of letters (A, C, G, and T) in any order. Due to the structure of DNA its complement can be inferred.
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Now let's talk about viruses. COVID19 (ssRNA) has 29,903 base pairs which is considered large for a virus. For reference and with only 5,386 base pairs, Phage F-X174 (ssDNA) is commonly used in biological experiments because of its relatively small genome. The smallest known sequenced genome (to date) is Circovirus (ssDNA) with a genome size of only 859 base pairs.
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We have now established a hard lower limit for genome size. Sort of. Technically speaking, this isn't the lower limit because viruses do not code for all of the cellular machinery they require to replicate. They are after all parasitic. So, we need to increase this a bit. The lower limit for a self-replicating molecule has been estimated to be between 1,500 and 2,000 base pairs in length.
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There are in total only 4 possible base pairs and the minimum length is 1,500 so the math is easy.
4 ^ 1500 = 1.2302319221611171769315588132768e+903
That's the chance that the very smallest, minimum self-replicating molecule randomly assembles itself according to natural processes.
Now let's compare this to the known age of the universe which is 13.78 billion years old which has been confirmed through multiple independent methods of experimentation.
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Written out that is 13,780,000,000 years.
But we don't actually have that much time to work with. I mean, atoms don't yet exist at the beginning of the big bang and neither does the Earth. So, we actually only have 4.5 billion years, the approximate age of the Earth.
Written out that is 4,500,000,000 years.
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But we don't actually have that much time to work with because we think we have found the isotopic signature of life in zircon crystals that date back to around 4.1 billion years ago. That brings us way down to 4 million years.
And this is an estimate. The markers in the zircon crystals may be inaccurate or the crystals themselves may date slightly more or less recently. Bottom line: The window of opportunity for life to arise through natural processes is fairly narrow.
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Written out that is just 400,000,000 years.
Let's compare it to the minimum size self-replicating molecule.
4 ^ 1500 = 1.2302319221611171769315588132768e+903
Written out that is 12302319221611171769315588132768 with another 872 zeroes after it
OR
123023192216111717693155881327680000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
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000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
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0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Oy! 🤦♀️ Let's do some math to get this number into a form that we can understand and work with.
There are exactly 31,557,600,000 milliseconds in a Julian year in astronomy which is defined as exactly 365.25 days.
Our available time for evolutionary processes translates to:
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400,000,000 years x 31,557,600 seconds = 12,623,040,000,000,000,000 microseconds
And, well, you hopefully get the point. Even if we cycle through the available sequences at millisecond speed we will only sample a TINY fraction of what is necessary for life to have evolved on its own.
1.0260699444236031677449413559454e-884 sequences will be missed to be exact.
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Even if the whole surface of the Earth were a vast set of tiny laboratories operating perfectly for hundreds of millions of years (!) we still aren't getting that number down far enough or fast enough. The total surface area of the Earth is 509,600,000 square km. This translates to 509,600,000,000,000,000 microns.
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Time x Surface Area
12,623,040,000,000,000,000 ms x 509,600,000,000,000,000 microns = 6.432701184e+36
Minimum Size Self-Replicating Molecule / Earth's surface as a set of tiny laboratories
1.2302319221611171769315588132768e+903 / 6.432701184e+36 = 1.9124655210490143870042989599512e+866
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Or instead of the Earth's surface you can substitute that many coexisting Earths each trying to birth life. Scientists estimate that there are 200 billion galaxies in the universe. That's 200,000,000,000 or 2.0e+11. With 6.432701184e+36 simultaneous "laboratories" working in parallel that's enough for more than 3 Earth-like planets in every galaxy.
In short, there just isn't enough time. Or planets. And we're GREATLY skewing the odds in favor of natural processes to the point of absurdity.
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So, it didn't happen this way. The math tells us that the chance life happened naturally is virtually zero. Now if you think that this is how it happened--how it must have happened!--then you have placed your faith in a scientific process. How is that any different from me placing my faith in a Creator God? BTW, my belief simplifies everything. Believing that there is a God removes the element of random chance which is required for all natural processes.
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All that math I did doesn't matter if there is someone powerful enough to orchestrate these things. Or has the ability to create at will. BTW, there are multiple creation viewpoints. The most common is Young Earth Creationism (YEC). This is the position of most christians, sadly, and is filled with #pseudoscience like the belief that the earth is only around 10,000 years old. I'm an Old Earth Creationist (OEC) which is not built on pseudoscience.
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People who think God used evolution to create life are Evolutionary Creationists. And there are others. All of them are based on real world science except YEC.
Let's talk about #Faith for a moment. Faith isn't something restricted to religious expression. Faith isn't rare and is never blind. We all use faith every day. All of us. Because no human has perfect knowledge, we go about our daily lives trusting that things will go a certain way.
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Whether that is trusting a spouse not to cheat or sitting down in a chair before we've tested it thoroughly to know if it will hold our weight or not. Faith is common. Sherlock Holmes popularized the notion of deductive reasoning but there is a related type called abductive reasoning. This is often defined as "inference to the best explanation". In other words, this is faith or something very close to it.
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e.g., My wife hasn't cheated on me in the past so I believe / I have faith / I infer that she will not cheat on me in the future.
Now, there is another way to resolve the problem of random chance. Scientists have been, shall we say, uncomfortable with the idea that the universe had a beginning for decades because of the implication that there has to be something--or someone--outside the universe to get it going.
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After all, scientists are human beings complete with all their faults, fears, and biases. Many humans are uncomfortable with the idea of a supreme being who might sit in judgment over them. So, some of those human beings, who also happen to be scientists, have looked for anything which might contradict the implications of a beginning or offer an alternative theory for decades. The current best alternative is the #ManyWorlds hypothesis better known as the #Multiverse.
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If all possible realities exist, then of course the universe we are in must have been one that randomly got it right. This is science fiction because there is no hard evidence for it. However, it is regarded as science fact in some circles. So, I ask you: how much faith does it take to believe in a multiverse?
And now we come to the end of our scientific journey to a strange conclusion: every position taken on the issue of the origin of life results in having faith in something or someone.
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There is no neutral position. Following the #Science leads us to #Faith. Personally, I regard the multiverse as science fiction because it is. If anyone is honest with themself and accepts the conclusions of modern science, then concluding that there must be a Creator God behind the curtain becomes the most rational choice based on science.
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I leave you with these words from Arthur Conan Doyle as spoken through that most famous of detectives Sherlock Holmes:
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Thank you for reading.
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---
Note that everything in this thread has been greatly simplified--to the point of absurdity--to give evolution every possible advantage:
* I used the lower estimated limit as the minimum size for a self-replicating molecule but this really is a rock-bottom estimate. Almost all viruses are larger than this and scientists are split on whether they constitute life given their nature and function. Genome size starts going up very quickly the more complex life gets.
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Bacteria range in the hundreds of thousands of base pairs so is a mere 1,500 really realistic? In all honesty, no.
* It's not really 4 ^ 1500 either. Each of the 4 bases is actually a complex molecule composed of a nitrogenous base, a pentose sugar, and a phosphate. These nucleotides are a complex sequence of atoms themselves so the number represented by 4 should really be 91 ^ 32, more or less.
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There are 91 possible elements naturally occurring in the universe and I counted 32 elements in Adenine. Thus, the actual equation would be (91 ^ 30-something) ^ 1600. Note that this probably represents a maximum estimate. Reducing all of this to a mere 4 has oversimplified this layer of complexity to an absurd level.
* We are ignoring the formation of amino acids entirely. Scientists do not know how any but the simplest amino acids form in nature.
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@danielbsmith Meaning no insult, you've adopted any number of "simplifying" assumptions that are trivially demonstrated to be invalid.
DNA is "self assembling" , and randomized combinations, w/r/t living organisms take, in essence, zero time to discard.
Once you have one bacterium... that reproduces, asexually, every... 30 minutes, say. inside of a week, you'd be running *billions* or trials, in parallel.
@TheKarlWLewis DNA is not self-assembling in nature. The first self-replicating molecule would have to exist without any protections like a cellular membrane. The presence of oxygen and many other substances tends to break down complex molecules like DNA immediately.
We can debate the time needed for assembly. I chose 1 millisecond but it's not zero.
Yes to the bacterium but now you're in the range of 100,000-900,000 base pairs. The complexity grows extremely quickly.
@TheKarlWLewis Hmm... It's showing exactly the same for me. I'll assume this is a cache issue. If anyone needs it reposted let me know.
@danielbsmith
DNA IS self-assembling. It's not as if cells have "muscles" to put it all together. It works because of complex chemistry.
Oxygen might or might not break down DNA at some rate, but, that's irrelevant, inasmuch as oxygen was not present in significant quantities on Earth until the rise of cyano-bacteria, which dramatically altered the atmosphere by creating free oxygen, and obviously, by that time, cell membranes were a thing.
Unlikely things happen all the time.See: Powerball.
This is Rene Decartes's argument, with more reference to chemistry and probability, but, he was begging the question, and you're doing the same.
What happened was "impossible", without divine intervention, yet, logically, that is no more likely than blind luck. I mean, what's the probability that a deity exists? How'd that happen, exactly? Can you experimentally test THAT?
See the problem? You're holding me to a standard you have no intention of holding your own argument to.
@TheKarlWLewis That's not my argument. It's this:
Holding to a natural explanation for the origin of life is having faith in a tiny speck of a sliver of a nearly infinitely small chance.
Holding to a multiverse is blind faith since there is no evidence to support the existence of multiple worlds.
So having faith in a divine Creator to explain the creation of the universe and the origin of life really isn't all that extreme. All require faith. By comparison, it's quite reasonable.
@TheKarlWLewis Powerball is designed to have exactly one winner and this requirement is enforced by human overseers. If you think this is a good analogy for natural processes creating the first lifeform then congratulations! You've just shown that a Mind had to exist to control the process and compel the result.
My argument is about irreducible complexity and a minimum viable product: the first self-replicating molecule. I gave evolution every advantage. The math doesn't lie.
That's a bald assertion. The Powerball lottery is *designed* to have approx. 1:275000000 odds. It occasionally has two, or more, winners.
No one in their right mind suggests that nuclear decay has "intelligence" behind it. And yet, half lives of radioactive isotopes are quite reliable.
An apparent design *suggests* a designer... but is hardly proof.
Again, things with tiny odds happen all the time.
Your math, and statistical analysis, are quite thoroughly flawed, and you've made any number of assertions about chemistry that are demonstrably untrue. Chiefly, that DNA is not self-assembling. It is, and such has been trivially demonstrated.
Again, your assertion that some other force is at work is simply begging the question, and requires a leap that is utterly untestable, and unfalsifiable.
The evidence of evolution is basicaly undeniable. The analysis of, for example, of the last time humans and chimps shared a common ancestor, provides ample proof that DNA self-replicates with a predictable error rate, and those "errors" have consequences. Thus Earth is teaming with an explosion of species, all of which are likely related, and none of which were designed.
@TheKarlWLewis Show me this undeniable evidence for evolution and I'll show you physical processes that work to maintain the viability of existing creatures or ecosystems. There is no actual evidence that evolutionary processes can create anything new and lasting let alone anything on the scale of abiogenesis.
The idea that humans and chimps shared a common ancestor is an assumption based on the evolutionary theory. There's no evidence that it happened. This is evolution-of-the-gaps.
@TheKarlWLewis You are correct in your basic assertions about the mutation rate. However, the vast majority of mutations are deleterious. Around 99%. The 1% of mutations that might be beneficial are dwarfed by the deleterious ones. The net effect over time is toward DNA with more errors and lifeforms that are more fragile.
Dog breeds are evidence of this because humans have inadvertently concentrated the errors due to the forced breeding. Hemophilia in European royalty is another.
I am aware that it is common, among *certain* groups, to deny the obvious relationship between chimps and humans, but denial is a long way from "disproving."
On the one hand you'd like to talk about how unlikely all this is, and then, on the other, you tell me that the barely 2% difference is some kind of random "coincidence."
No one bothers denying that horses and donkeys are evolutionarily related. ANd those two distinct species can *almost* interbreed. They're far more dissimilar, DNA-wise, than humans and bonobos.
Evolution is a "theory" in much the way that gravity is a "theory."
The alternative is to posit that the fossil record was created, in situ, Occam would not be kind to that notion.
@TheKarlWLewis Actually, there are other alternatives. Lamarckism is perhaps the best. He was a contemporary of Darwin. He postulated that God could have built lifeforms from a set of universal templates. Basically, life is modular.
This actually works when considering the fossil record. Eyes, for instance, need to evolve many times over throughout any evolutionary tree but if there was a Creator this isn't a problem. The origin of eyes matches a creation model better.
@TheKarlWLewis There's no need to disprove something if it hasn't been proven. I'm afraid the burden is not on me first. There are phenotype similarities between humans and chimps but no biologist on earth understands how that translates to genotype. Evolution posits a strong connection between the two but that's just not what we see in nature.
Well, claiming there's a "controversy" is not the same thing, at all, as having an actual controversy.
To the best of my knowledge, no one has yet offered any alternative to evolution, that does not involve unfalsifiable claims of "magic."
As I've already said, your claims w/r/t statistics, and the available rates of mutation, and the likelihood of "success", as well as your claims regarding organic chemistry, are demonstrably false.
IN an earlier post you made the rather bizzare claim that life tends to become ever more complex and "fragile",while, in fact, the opposite is true. Yes, life on Earth has, over the past three or three and a half billion years, or so, tending to become more complex, it has, also, become far more robust and diverse.
@TheKarlWLewis Apologies. I meant to say that the mutation rate tends to make DNA more full of errors and generally fragile. Life itself has trended toward being more complex over time. The takeaway for me is that there is a mismatch here.
@TheKarlWLewis Reasons.org has released a creation model that uses strictly scientific research. Blending creation and science is something of a bastardization in the minds of many so its merits are dismissed without investigation. This is largely due to the preponderance of Young Earth Creationism (YEC) saturating the market with pseudo scientific theories making it hard to gain any traction. That's why you've not heard of it.
Two things:
1) The fossil record, while hardly complete, is wide, and deep, and sufficiently complete in many instances to "prove" evolution in the scientific sense. No competing theories exist.
2) Even if one were to allow, just for argument's sake, that your statistical analysis, and chemistry were correct, then one could solve that problem by hypothesizing that the seeds of life arrived on a comet. And that would provide DNA, on Earth, with no appeal to a deity.
@TheKarlWLewis
(1) Lamarckism is a competing theory. Evolution isn't proven by the existence of the fossil record. It is an assumption of how all ancient and modern animals might be related.
(2) Moving the origin of life off world only complicates things. The necessary initial steps still need to be completed (just elsewhere) with the added complexity of some form of space travel that prevents life from expiring during transit or arrival. A younger universe makes this much harder too.
@danielbsmith
"Lamarckism is a competing theory."
Ha! That's not even close to true. You can find no peer reviewed research suggesting anything like that.
Evolution is amply demonstrated by the fossil record. Evolution predicts that you can find intermediate types, and, in fact, that's what we've found. Time, and time again.
You've gotten my point about off-world origins of life. Now, do the same for a "magic" origin. You have to posit something with no evidence. "Special pleading."
@TheKarlWLewis Lamarckism is a theory. There's not really a good way to test it. Thus no papers.
Actually, we're missing a lot of intermediates. There's not one missing link but many.
The point I was making in that long thread a while back seems to have been overlooked. The point I was making is that people hold on to their belief in evolution for patently non-scientific reasons. Otherwise, my argument would have been accepted. E.g. you *believe* in evolution despite evidence to the contrary.
@TheKarlWLewis Thus my belief in a Creator is entirely rational as the best explanation for life and the universe. It's ironic but that's my argument.
Science leads to faith. Some people are willing to accept this, some even gladly, but others hate this conclusion deeply because of the implications that there is a deity in authority over them or who will judge them. They will cling to anything else as long as they can justify it in their minds because they hate the conclusion that a God exists.
@danielbsmith "Lamarkism" is trivially tested, and it fails, every time. Giraffes in an area with acacia trees taller than they can reach do not have offspring with longer necks, they starve. Wheat planted in Autumn does not "learn" to grow in Winter, it freezes.
It was only ever taken seriously in the Stalinist Soviet Union, and it is why the Soviet Union lost an entire generation of biologists.
"Spontaneous Generation" is a theory, too. But it is not a competitor for evolution any more than LaMark's half-baked teleology.
"Faith" is, basically a willingness or desire to believe in something that is unfalsifiable, which is *fine*, but, that ain't science, and if your "science" led you to faith, then I'd argue you're sciencing wrong.
You are, of course, perfectly welcome to your faith, that's none of my business, and entirely your own. But... mis-using statistics and chemistry in an attempt to discredit actual science is... intellectual dishonesty.
@TheKarlWLewis Apologies. I didn't realize that chart had a transparent background. I grabbed it from Wikipedia. Here is a more readable version.