The Science of Biological Evolution (no politics or religion)

Elroch - "The increase in the total range of gene variants over time is limited by how the process of evolution works."

And just how does the "process work" ?

Answer:

By a process of your description.

"The process" is the process of biological evolution, which involves a pool of genes being subject to a low level of mutation and natural selection.  That is but one mechanism.  Mutation-selection theory alone is insufficient to account for all biological change

The mathematics can be manipulated to any desired result, all depending on which factors are included/rejected. The resulting "possibility" in mathematical terms is not representative, whether one is trying to prove something might have happened, or is impossible to have happened. Abstract possibility belongs in the real world, events that are observed, (or can be created), by testing and verification.  

It's been said, something is possible if it does not break any natural laws, such as it is impossible to for anything to move faster than the speed of light. Ok, fine so be it. But simply state as such. Using mathematics [ chances are >0 ] as if this somehow is a verification that something could have happened is nothing more than an attempt to insert "science" into the discussion when the answer is - "It is unknowable with current data." You either believe it possible or not, or somewhere in-between.

In the end, it really is not pertinent whether one set of manipulated factors claim .0000001 possibility or .01 possibility. If someone believes it's "possible" the numbers are pointless.

*What is the probability that a 1 liter volume container can hold 2 liters???

This is not an event, nor has any more relevance to this discussion than other logical falsehoods. The probability is still 0 is it not?  

However, if you meant something like the probability that a one liter bottle in the ocean would contain 2 kg of water at standard temperature and pressure, it's merely a stupendously low probability, not zero and not relevant.

*What is the probability of hydrogen and carbon spontaneously forming a linear hydrocarbon chain that is one light year in length?

Extremely low (with a better definition of the question), not zero, and not relevant.  It's a possible configuration of matter (though extremely improbable) therefore >0 probability so it theoretically could exist but I imagine that it couldn't form (can't form a linear configuration of matter that long--would collapse under its own gravity).

No, that is incorrect.

This is obviously an extreme example, but I'm wondering how we factor things like this into the equation.  For if we were able to somehow calculate all possible arrangements of atoms, quantum states and come up with some figure X it would be incorrect to say the probability of one of those forming/occurring is 1/X

Think of it this way. Suppose you managed to list every possible way that abiogenesis might occur, we don't even have one way that we've figured out so this is all just guesswork up to some threshold of improbability (per unit volume of the Universe) adding volume doesn't automatically solve maken AB likely  that is high enough to include some possibilities. Then the only ones that matter are the more likely ones, because they occur far more often than the ones with 20 more zeros (or whatever).  but as you know--we don't know--so in the end this is all just conjecture and speculation and is of no practical value to scientists trying to answer the question of how did life originate?

You can't ignore a possibility because it is improbable in a "small" volume. And adding a large volume doesn't automatically make something more probable; depends on a myriad other factors as you know You can ignore one because another is far more likely. 

We start with the fact that life has arisen. All probabilities are conditional on that. Let's start with life exists and we don't know how it originated.  As improbable as say a Mars-based origin might be it may in fact be correct and more probable than AB on earth.

Let's assume the universe is sufficiently large and assume AB can happen (we'll ignore the self-referential paradoxes and chicken-or-egg problems in trying to stepwise originate a living system) such that as you say it would occur on at least one planet....Based on  what we've learned from the 60 plus yrs of OOL research if we had the power to create that one, single special planet for AB we could come up with a wish list of optimal conditions we want our planet to have like a strongly reducing atmosphere that would make our planet the more highly likely one....And that's just it.  Based on what we've learned about prebiotic synthesis and early earth conditions and the temporal and geochemical constraints we're learning about, arguments could be made for putting earth on the more unlikely planet list.  Conditions on Mars when it was forming may have been more suitable than earth for AB (and in some ways we know that Mars was)....So just saying that we have a slight positive probability problem solved--life originated at least once on some lucky planet does nothing to help us explain the existence of life on earth...So scientists who are trying to actually figure out how---how do they go about evaluating plausibilities?  What are the criteria?  How small must the increasingly narrow window of time we have available for an earth-based OOL get before we say that's implausible and a Mars-based OOL is more likely?  Can your Bayesian probabilities be applied closer to home to help us answer questions like that?  If not, then just saying the existence of life is guaranteed somewhere in the universe does nothing to help us explain why life exists here on this planet   

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*OK, since this is your area of expertise and you keep being so gosh darn persistent/insistent about it I went back, double-checked and went over with a fine-toothed comb.  In the source I cited from, the researcher stated 0 probability and included all the variables that went into the calculation along with the following diagram:

*I cross-checked and in another source the researcher states 0 probability to negligible.

*In another source citation the researcher states 10^-26 probability of all 82 molecules being entrapped in <300nm vesicle, so you were right that it couldn't be exactly zero:

0.00000000000000000000000001

*But the researchers accept this as a 0 chance probability nonetheless. 

So would you believe them if they told you 1 = 2? Oh c'mon Elroch.  That's night and day.  Whether someone told you the odds are 0 or .00000000000000000000000001 would that influence your casino bet?  Would you believe Mendel if he told you there was a 3:1 ratio of yellow to green peas instead of 2.97 to 1?   For most purposes, this might be good enough. In this case it is woefully inadequate. You stated probability is much bigger than the inverse of the number of planets in the observable Universe. And how did you determine that number? 

I am rather certain of that based on large numbers of observations of extrasolar planets this century, and I am rather pleased to be able to say that I was right in my estimate of the number before any extrasolar estimates were known. Presently it is strongly believed that a large proportion of stars have planets, and many have many planets.

In all frankness, I should say that with the exact probability you gave, if it had been for the lifetime of one planet (which it was not) you would need a somewhat larger region than the observable Universe, but a smaller region than is inferred to exist (which is quite a lot bigger than the observable Universe).

All of what we see as the CMB (seen 300,000 years after the Big Bang) is believed to now be much like the observable Universe, and this is enormously bigger than the part we see as galaxies (at the time of the CMB, no stars or galaxies had formed, of course).

Perhaps we should factor some priors into your estimate--like the number of planets estimated to have liquid water, be in the "goldilocks" zone (circumstellar habitable zone), galactic habitable zone, not tidally locked, not a gas giant, optimal orbital eccentricity and inclination, not part of a binary system---we can estimate from the over 2000 exoplanets we've discovered, we can factor in dozens more parameters I'm sure and see what that does to our estimate.

Sure. We might also factor in a multiple for the size of the oceans on a planet, which goes in the other direction. Fine.  Works for me.  Let's make our estimate as accurate as we can.  The only problem is that increasing ocean size doesn't work in our favor but works against us.  Greater the volume of ocean, greater the dilution problem (As I said, increasing volume doesn't automatically help us).  Then there's the hydrolysis problem, the low concetration problem, the polymerization problem of linking building blocks together to make proteins and nucleic acids like RNA because polymerization reactions occur by dehydration synthesis reactions, and then we have the problem of high insolubility of phosphates in water which would precipitate out of solution and form mineralized apatite on the bottom of the ocean which is a real big problem since RNA consists of ribonucletudes linked together by phosphodiester bonds between phosphates and ribose sugar in order to make an RNA molecule---kind of difficult to do in the ocean given the negligible presence of phosphates in the ocean due to their low solubility---a negligible presence that would be diluted further the larger the volume of ocean you want to have.  Can't make RNA much less improbable synthesis of functional, self-replicating ones if you don't even have enough building blocks....Hence the increased skepticism in OOL community regarding an ocean based OOL.  Why?  Because of our knowledge of prebiotic chemistry.  But who cares about all that as long as we have slight chance then it must have happened somewhere in the universe thus the mystery of the existence of life on earth solved.

*Yeah, I don't think so.  There's a reason OOL chemists put more stock in actual experimental data than theoretical probability calculations.

   So if there was this probability of something happening on one planet, it would be virtually certain to happen on one of them. My guess is that anyone who would be sloppy enough to say this number is zero wouldn't even realise that. Yes, "for most purposes" is the key phrase.

The purpose of identifying the origin of life is entirely unlike "most purposes". It is in all likelihood dependent on things that happened to just one molecule and got replicated.  If that's true then it begs the question (that has already been raised by scientists) of the limitations of scientific inquiry when it comes to the OOL---science does an excellent job explaining natural phenomena and repeatable patterns.  Explaining a single occurrence anomaly?  Not as easy (to understate things)

And I'm sure the researchers would realize it, and that they're also well aware of how astronomical that improbability becomes when we start multiplying all the probabilities together like the probability of spontaneous occurrence of these specific 82 molecules in the first place which includes complex enzymes and the probability of their spontaneous occurrence in the exact same location at the same time with a sufficient concentrating mechanism and a thousand other details....I'm sure it would dwarf your known planets estimate that it would be little different than invoking miracles.  But OOL scientists have to work in the real world so they would be justified in abandoning such a low probability pathway 

This is pure creationist nonsense. It involves guessing probabilities for poorly defined processes that may have literally no relevance to the origin of life. We can be absolutely sure that the processes that led to life are as specially favoured as the processes that propagate it. That is because these are the only ones that have a chance of success. We can also be absolutely sure that we know about only a tiny fraction of how these processes behave.  Creationist nonesense?  The hell it is.  It's a reflection of the shift from OOL by "chance" (which according to Luisi no serious scientist thinks life originated that way) to "contingency" thinking.  The astronomical improbabilities from just simple calculations of dumb luck chance selection of correct "left-handed" amino acid isomer forms and "right-handed" sugars and then correctly sequenced on top of that by dumb luck to miraculously generate functional biopolymers and we haven't even got to protometabolism yet.   And the more realistic we make it the more improbable it becomes.  And prebiotic chemists have become extremely sophisticated and adept with both experimental reaction syntheses and theoretical calculations.  Luisi's response to the compounding astronomical improbabilities that creationists bring up ("creationist nonsense" as you say) is not to dispute it---not at all---in fact, OOL chemists in the "contingency" camp acknowledge the improbabilities themselves (they don't need any "help" from creationists).  Whereas no improbability is too great for you, it is for prebiotic chemists who know how much greater the improbabilities really are---much more than you seem to be aware--because they factor in the organic chemistry side of things--from free energies, equilibrium constants, kinetic rates of reaction, temperature, pressure, concentration effects, energy barriers, bulk concentrations, solute and ion effects, nucleophile attack propensities, pH, energetically activated precursors, dynamics of protein folding--sophisticated calculations that factor in so many variables from hydrophobicity to steric space and on and on and on....including research I've seen that factors in quantum effects....They have over a half century of experimental, empirical data collected along with theoretical comparisons-----mountains of data on reaction probabilities under wide ranges of specific, well-defined reaction conditions for relevant prebiotic processes vs. your theoretical only paper-math.  I believe we should consider both but if you're gonna characterize things that way I'll take actual scientific empirical, experimental results over your theorizing any day.  They take the immense improbabilities in the context of organic chemistry for what they are....wildly fantastic fantasy pipe dreams that are so unrealistic that they don't buy it---"no serious scientist" would.  Hence, the change from "chance" to "contingency," where the "creationist nonsense" is now irrelevant because it's now a strawman argument.  "no serious scientist" thinks you can pick the correct isomer forms by dumb luck of amino acids and sugars---from hundreds of possible wrong isomers for the latter---over and over and over again, thousands and thousands of times (assuming you have enough building blocks) without a single wrong chance selection.  That is why, as I've tried to explain before, OOL research seeks to find plausible chemical reactions and physical mechanisms that will result in correct selection without having to appeal to dumb luck chance....And this was actually the major point I was trying to get us to all along by bringing up the example I did, so you can understand how the OOL chemists think.....They see a number like 0.00000000000000000000000001 and to a chemist even if it happens once in the universe it's so unrealistic that it's of no practical value and doesn't help advance the goal of finding a set of unique contingencies that get us to a living system.  That 10^-26 value is too unrealistic....WHICH IS WHY THEY HAVE DISCOVERED A WAY TO ENTRAP ALL 82 OF THOSE MOLECULES IN 100 NM VESICLES NOT BY CHANCE BUT VIA NATURALLY OCCURRING CHEMICAL AND PHYSICAL MECHANISMS.....You really need to learn some organic chemistry--a lot of it so you can actually understand the OOL field so you can better understand how they approach these questions and understand the significance of the empirical results obtained from tens of thousands of prebiotic chemistry experiments and how the vast majority of them are negative and why that's not necessarily a bad thing---because it helps guide the research....Instead of trying to defend longstanding scenarios, we're finally taking the results more seriously, and ruling out possibilities instead of trying to prop them up and save dead-end scenarios and as a result progress is being made by considering new ideas that never would have been considered before because of stubborn refusal to acknowledge the data that kept the field myopically focused on a limited set of scenarios that just had to be right so we're going to force it to be right even if all the data tells us not plausible.

*As a general rule: probability results like these are the type of results that prebiotic chemists take seriously and use to rule out or abandon various pathways/scenarios/approaches as implausible and then continue the search for other possibilities.  In your opinion, is this a valid approach?  i.e. if a prebiotic chemist obtains probability results like this for a reaction are they justified in deeming it implausible and abandoning it as a dead-end?

In your opinion, if something has a probability of very close to 1 of happening in the observable Universe, would it be reasonable to exclude it as relevant to the origin of life? See above.  I am asking you about specific pathways....Well regardless, this highlights an important difference between you and OOL chemists who will abandon or pursue pathways of the basis of such results or even better on the basis of actual experimental results, factoring in kinetics, thermodynamics, reagents, product yields, competing products, reaction conditions needed for each step, whether or not a series of reactions reaches a low energy, equilibrium point and bottoms out/grinds to a halt.....it's not a simple issue of "its a configuration of matter so slight positive probability problem solved"

What they do makes sense: they look at the more probable processes because these occur more. If that fails, they need in principle to keep going through every complex possibility, ideally in rough order of how likely these are until they find the least unlikely one(s) that explains life. Whether this is even possible is a tough question, IMO!  And yet that's the point of the tens of thousands of prebiotic chemistry experiments