Mathematical challenges to Darwin's Theory of evolution

There are academic professionals on both sides of the discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te3aShKST1A

Actually, the 'academic professionals' quoted by creationists are usually thinly disguised creationists themselves or get persuaded to be used as fronts for that cause.

Peltzer is a good example of this.

Then quote instead those dissenting specialists in the field of organic chemistry/biology that have no connection whatsoever to creationism. Like it or not when any scientist allies themselves to the cause of creationism they raise questions around their objectivity as scientists.

I DO NOT CARE what they are concerning their world views are; I care about the strength of their arguments. The people on this link do not share the same world views. You have the world in two camps; those that disagree with you, put them all into one camp, not giving them the dignity of having the ability to make up their minds on any topic!

Figuring out the odds of something and finding it wanting is mathematical. Looking at the mechanisms is different than doing the math, correct. The math can only come into play concerning how likely once details are known, is it reasonable or not? I can do the math on the math on typing out the word "happy" using a keyboard with 30 letters. The math only tells us the odds of doing it right compared to getting it wrong.

We can judge the likelihood of suggested possible typists say between a human and a monkey typist. If a person is going to type, it is highly likely we have historical data of them doing it so they could overcome the odds of getting it wrong, but if it is said monkey did it, that is another. What mechanism mathematically is more reasonable and what is not are all part of the discussion.

I don't see the issue with the name of the discussion.

I'm afraid I have to disagree I pointed out to you already that they discussed possible changes during the formation of an established lifeform. For something to evolve, altering a lifeform in such a way over time to have it become something new, something else means mutations need to occur early in the development process. The danger in changing things soon in the process is that something that is required downstream could be in jeopardy due to these changes. If the mutations occur late, the structure is already in place, so there would never be a new body form; nothing could change that. With precision altering the whole thing that would make it possible, without it, not so much, the odds are against it.

It isn't the strawman; it is the heart of the disagreement. You cannot change a stable computer program by entering random keystrokes and produce a better functional piece of software. Why it is believed that small changes over time can make dramatic alterations in life a mystery to me outside of the possible philosophical concerns.

I’m not suggesting the link is anything other than what it claims to be which was a discussion with three people moderated by someone. If you want a coherent argument, I’d look at  Icons of evolution where the points are made and backed up instead of a moderated free flow of points.

Wow!  You are completely missing the point.  Even if "the odds" are such that random mutation is insufficient as a mechanism for evolution (or hypothetically even IF we had to throw our hands up in ignorance and say we have no mechanism and no idea how evolution could possibly occur), none of that would change the evidence we have from genomics and molecular biology that living things are still related (i.e., that evolution has, in fact, occurred). 

For example, we can use genetics to establish the close relationship of two people (to a MATHEMATICAL degree of certainty).  Now imagine if these two people lived in completely different (and isolated) geographic contexts, such that we cannot come up with an immediate answer to how they are related.  That lack of answer would not negate the genetic evidence that they are still, somehow related despite are inability to demonstrate the "how."

Put another way, yes, your arguments are arguments against mechanisms, but even if you show the improbability of a given mechanism (or even if we are left with no mechanism at all!) this still would do nothing to negate the evidence we still have from genomics and molecular biology that living things are still related

"With all due respect, your statements demonstrate that you lack understanding of genomics and molecular biology."

I have programmed enough to know you cannot alter a stable program to know what can be done and cannot without introducing errors. You can demonstrate how this can be done I'd pay attention to you. 

 " Small changes in regulatory genes (not structural genes) result in major changes in morphology.  This is common knowledge"

More like a common belief, to suggest this proves it can happen by saying it can happen isn't saying anything at all. Can you show this is true with observed science or just suggest this means that could happen by inference? I'll look at any link you can give that shows this is true.

"We have discovered that most mutations are NOT random "accidents" but under BIOLOGIC CONTROL.  I have posted repeatedly on this in Elroch's forum and you have even commented on "the design" of such biological control "

Biological control, unless there is something of a design here how would this be any different than a chemical reaction running its course? How would anything functionally new occur like having an arm evolve with all of the connecting joints, muscles, nerves, and so on, that would be like a rock falling up instead of down. 

So then you admit that the video does NOT actually provide us with ACTUAL NUMBER-BASED "MATHEMATICAL CHALLENGES"?

Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk....STILL waiting for you to present ACTUAL MATHEMATICAL CHALLENGES to Darwin's Theory of Evolution with ACTUAL NUMBERS and MATHEMATICAL CALCULATIONS 

I admit common ancestors can be true in life without all life sharing a common ancestor, and common design can give everything a meaningful commonality as well.

I don't see why this point is a big one for you, if you watched the whole link you'd seen how they go into the likelihood of events occurring which is mathematically reasoned out. Just because numbers were not always thrown out doesn't mean that was not how they arrived at it's possibly occurring.

If seeing how the odds for proteins are something you have no idea about, it is a little thing to do a quick search on the numbers of things like proteins, among other possible requirements. I believe they even went into how to do it, if you need/want the method I'll give it to you and present it from sources you can look up.

You're still missing the point 

I'm sure I know more about the subject than you do.  What I don't understand, however, is why you keep dancing around the issue and STILL refuse to give us ACTUAL NUMBERS.  What I don't understand is how you are unable to see the problem as the OP with starting a thread entitled "Mathematical Challenges to Darwin's Theory of Evolution" based on a video link that does not provide actual mathematical challenges to EVOLUTION.  I can understand @stephen_33 frustration starting at the very beginning of the thread with your refusal to even provide a synopsis of the video.  My frustration lies in part that I did take the time to watch it only to discover that the video is wrongly titled, so I wasted my time.  You, however, want to keep arguing that it does actually deliver on the title while STILL giving us no actual mathematical challenges; while still giving no time stamp to the video where mathematical challenges to evolution are given.  It's ridiculous.  You shouldn't have started an OP entitled "Mathematical Challenges to Darwin's Theory of Evolution" if you weren't actually going to present any mathematical challenges.  It is a waste of everyone's time

Do you realize that you still have yet to give a single number-based mathematical challenge yet even after four pages?  And any time someone asks you to provide such you either tell them to watch the video (been there, done that) or now you say to do a quick search.

Can you not see the problem in all this?  It's like if I started a thread entitled mathematical evidence for evolution with a video link that didn't give any mathematical arguments and tell you if you want to know more then just go Google it yourself.  Why even bother to start a thread on a subject that you're not actually going to discuss and simply tell people to google about it for themselves?  If you can't see the problem with that then I don't know what to tell you.

(Q: What are the MATHEMATICAL odds of winning the lottery?  You: "Not good.")

If you're not going to deliver then I will.  Here's a research article that presents a mathematical test for common ancestry (CA) vs separate ancestry (SA) that found overwhelming quantiative support for the common ancestry of all primates and found that the separate ancestry hypothesis of primates (null hypothesis) was statistically negated with a median p-value of 0.0000000000248 (!):

Statistical Evidence for Common Ancestry 

*Can you refute their math (and resulting statistical conclusions)?  I challenge you to do so

A trivial matter, why I choose to name the link that I did. When you actually clicked on the link did you see the name they used to name the discussion? I didn't come up with that, I simply shared what was said. You find fault there, uh okay.

A small point in your link, I have not actually spent time on it yet. I also have not looked at the other link you provided yet either. Sorry, I do plan on going over both of them, you took the time to provide them for so I can see your points and reasons. I've not looked at them as closely as I can yet, but will.

" We reasoned that since nucleotide variation at amino acid invariant sites is selectively neutral and, thus, unlikely to be due to convergent evolution, the observation that an amino acid is consistently encoded by the same codon sequence in different species could provide strong evidence of their common ancestry."

If this is flawed is the whole thing flawed? I don't see this as to different than saying this fossil is related to that one, because, insert reasons. The mathematical challenges in the discussion are basically all seen in the here and now, without taking anything on faith that this means that millennia ago.

That is an excellent question (and a gracious response that tolerates my expressed frustration, so I thank you)

And the answer to your question is I believe one that you will appreciate.  In short, they reasoned in a way that maximally favors a positive result for SA (i.e., that favors the separate ancestry (common design) hypothesis).  They wanted to avoid simply presenting a statistical argument based on similarity, recognizing that creationist proponents of SA would argue that such similarities do not reflect common ancestry (divergence) but common design (convergence). 

Specifically, they recognized with regard to similarities in protein amino acid sequences for different primate families that such similarities could arise not only just due to evolution but independently without any common ancestry involved due to the functional constraints of the proteins in question.

Thus, to eliminate this bias (in favor of  an evolutionary conclusion) they only included invariant amino acids (i.e., amino acids that are the same for all primates) where any differences in codons don't change the amino acid coded for (and thus are neutral changes when it comes to protein function because they do not change anything about the resulting protein).

For example (using the example they give), let's say that all primates have the same amino acid valine at a given position in a protein sequence.  Now due to the degeneracy of the genetic code, the four different codons GTT, GTA, GTC, and GTG all code for the same amino acid (valine). 

Now although genetic divergence can still happen by random genetic drift such as if you start with GTT in a common ancestor and random (neutral) mutation changes the third nucleotide ("wobble" position) from GTT to say GTA (without affecting the resulting protein because you still get the same amino acid valine)---the closer you are in time under an evolutionary hypothesis (and giving separate ancestry hypothesis the benefit of the doubt), then the less divergence you would expect even by random (neutral, non-natural selective) genetic drift under an evolutionary hypothesis.

In other words, under an evolutionary common ancestry hypothesis, we would predict that the underlying genetic codon should show little statistical variation.

That is, in the simplest scenario, if all primates are related then for invariant (same) amino acid sites in same proteins we would expect the underlying genetic codon to essentially be the same too.  Using the example, if all primate families code for valine with the same codon (say, GTC), then this would be a strong case that primates have this same codon due to shared common ancestry (*one could not argue that the codon is the same due to the functional constraints of common design because as discussed above any genetic changes at these invariant sites do not change the amino acid and thus do not affect protein structure-function) (*note: this is an oversimplification.  In the study, they ran various tests including a test that eliminated all same codons from analysis/from consideration to control for any unknown subtle, functional constraints (thus, giving the separate ancestry hypothesis even greater benefit of the doubt) and focused analysis on codon variance at invariant amino acid sites). 

But again, if we simplify, and just think in terms of the two basic extremes (common ancestry vs. independent/separate ancestry hypothesis), we see that each hypothesis makes predictions that we can test statistically: the "gist" is that we would expect limited variance in codons for same amino acids if they are related evolutionarily and the closer we approach a random distribution for codon variance, then the more likely it is that a separate ancestry hypothesis is true and that evolutionary common ancestry would be false.

As you no doubt already know, a p-value of <.05 in statistics is the typical standard required to demonstrate that the results are statistically meaningful/significant (in this case, indicating common ancestry) in order to reject the null hypothesis (in this case, the separate ancestry hypothesis) that any such codon similarities are statistically insignificant and can simply be explained as chance occurrence (that are not the result of common ancestry)

*The fact that they rejected the null hypothesis (SA) with a median p-value of 0.0000000000248, effectively means that there is a 0% probability that the observed genetic similarities are NOT due to common ancestry

*This constitutes powerful, robust statistical evidence that all primates (including humans) share a common ancestor.

*Your arguments against (the mechanism) of evolution do not affect this conclusion (which again is the point I keep trying to convey of the difference between evidence for common ancestry vs. any mechanisms (probable or improbable) that try to explain/account for common ancestry)

*Put another way, if for sake of argument we accept both your statements (about the need for a designer/programmer) with these statistical results, the two conclusions would not be in conflict with each other, but taken together would at "worst" (for evolution) indicate that a designer/programmer ("God") (caused evolution to happen/was the driving force behind evolution). 

*Thus, "worst" case scenario for the theory of evolution, the evidence would still show evolution (albeit, theistic evolution, if we take your arguments at face value and accept them as true)