A question about evolution

[John21]

I've been trying to get some numbers on the probability that man evolved from a chimp/great-ape and this is one version I found.
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In the human genome, there are four possible combinations of amino acids called nucleotides, but, instead of three dice, there are 3.2 billion nucleotides. The possible combinations would be four times four times four—repeatedly multiplying by four a total of 3.2 billion times.

The Human Genome Project, a joint international effort to unravel the structure of genetic material of humans, has determined that a genetic mutation of one billionth of a genome is always fatal. That means for a human, a random change of three nucleotides is fatal, thereby ending any further possibility of evolution for that individual’s offspring.

Evolutionists claim that chimpanzees are the closest living relatives to man, with a difference of about 48 million nucleotides. This means at least 48 million random events must have occurred in exactly the right order for the evolutionary gap between man and his hypothesized common ancestor with chimpanzee to have been spanned. Three changes in the genome during one generation would be fatal and stop the process. Therefore this number of changes would require a minimum of 24 million generations to achieve, assuming two changes happened during each generation.

These changes must happen in exactly the proper order, and each step must produce either no noticeable change or provide the offspring with some sort of advantage. Any negative change would stop or prolong the process. Each change must occur in a gene that is passed on to an offspring, and the offspring must survive and must undergo some further sort of change and have offspring and so on for each of the 48 million genetic changes.

Next, since there are 3.2 billion nucleotides in the human genome, the probability of one particular nucleotide being altered is 3.2 billion to one. To determine the mathematical probability of the genetic changes necessary for the hypothesized “evolution” between chimps and people, it is necessary to multiply 3.2 billion times 48 million.

The probability against the evolution from a common ancestor with chimps to modern man, using these figures, is 153 quadrillion (153 followed by 15 zeros) to one.

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Obviously, this is from an anti-Darwinian camp, but I'm just wondering if this number (153 quadrillion:1) is accurate? If not what is an accurate probability or is there one?

[godBoy]

Is 153 quadrillion:1 the chance of creating an exact replica of our genome from the chimps genome?

If so then there's many other possible genomes that could have been created by the random mutations - it's just the human genome that was favored by natural selection in our past.

Edit - In any case working with probabilities like this doesn't prove anything. It's just equally as unlikely as any other genome with the same amount of differences.

[Jiggymike]

The probability = 1 because it is one event and it happened.

Now serious answer. This article or whatever it is you are quoting is totally bogus. A change of three nucleotides is definitely not fatal, every time your DNA replicates it probably screws up more than that. Most mutations are totally harmless/neutral and have no effect on fitness or reproduction. This renders the rest of the article null.

The way that "evolutionists" calculate probability of events is by a process called Maximum Likelihood ML (or also using Bayes Theorem). ML is sort of a modelling, where you take the genetic information you have, apply it to a model of evolution (which admittedly makes assumptions about rate of evolution and "cost" of changing from one base to another. However these assumptions can be altered so as to test a wide range of parameters). However, this process does not find the probability, it finds the likelihood, which do not add up to one like a probability. Also, you wouldn't use it to figure out the likelihood that a great ape evolved into a human (which isn't quite accurate either). Instead, you would plug in the sequences of the apes (orangutan, chimp, gorilla, human) and run the analysis. The tree with the high likelihood is accepted.

This is the best example I can give. Like godboy said, the math for calculating such a likelihood is meaningless. Natural selection occurs, genomes are selected for, their probabilities are based on something unquantifiable. If you remove this from the equation, you have an equal probability of arriving at any other genome depending on the rate of evolution.

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
Natural selection occurs, genomes are selected for, their probabilities are based on something unquantifiable.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the explanation and clarification.

Would it be correct to define, "something unquantifiable," as physical attraction, beauty, love, etc., as to the way modern humans subjectively experience the natural selection process?

[pokerpunchout]

The answers you are looking for can be found using Bioinformatics. There are various mathmatics programs (BLAST, CLUSTL, ect) that will show genetic evolution and mutations in both DNA and protein sequences. It basically works by comparing specific sets of dna or protiens (called sequences) between species.

I took a bioinformatics graduate class a few years ago in order to better familiarize myself on the subject for a project I was working on at the time.

For a brief overview I would reccomend checking out http://bioinformatics.org

If you are serious about learning about this you can gain access to public domain programs at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Tools/

Sequences for various genes are also easy to find online as well. For example you can use BLAST to view how specific genes encoding various traits, like substance-P, or any other gene or trait, for example, have mutated/evolved from fruit flys all the way to humans.

[David Steele]

Besides all the other responses:

There is a kind of 1/100th empty 99/100ths full point from you numbers. Only 48 million different nucleotides and over 3 billion common ones for the two species.

Why so much common stuff if each is designed? Sure engineering re-use is good, but why not have a few sections that are completely new instead of only those strewn about randomly?

D.

[Sephus]

[ QUOTE ]
Besides all the other responses:

There is a kind of 1/100th empty 99/100ths full point from you numbers. Only 48 million different nucleotides and over 3 billion common ones for the two species.

Why so much common stuff if each is designed? Sure engineering re-use is good, but why not have a few sections that are completely new instead of only those strewn about randomly?

D.

[/ QUOTE ]

because it can't be obvious that god made us. even though it used to be...

[arahant]

[ QUOTE ]
Evolutionists claim that chimpanzees are the closest living relatives to man, with a difference of about 48 million nucleotides. This means at least 48 million random events must have occurred in exactly the right order for the evolutionary gap between man and his hypothesized common ancestor with chimpanzee to have been spanned.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the error.
I guess the question you are asking boils down to "what is the probabibility that a creature smart enough to ask this question ('what is the probability we evolved from a common ancestor') would have evolved from a common monkey ancestor". That is a tremendously difficult question to even guess at.

If you allow the time it actually took, plus another 4 billion years (or however long it is until we expect the sun to burn out) I would guess the answer is around 99%.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
The Human Genome Project, a joint international effort to unravel the structure of genetic material of humans, has determined that a genetic mutation of one billionth of a genome is always fatal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bull[censored].

The second half of their argument is totally ridiculous as well, as is easily understood by anyone who has read The Blind Watchmaker and knows about the WEASEL program.

Take any random string of letters:

ADKJFG AVIEUYRHV PIERNXCPKJG

And a target phrase:
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL

There are 27 different characters that can fit in any one of those slots, of which there are 28, so there are 27^28 (about 1.2x10^40) different possible combinations. Take the original phrase an produce say 10 "daughter phrases" that vary from the parent by only one character each, which is randomly changed. Discard 10 of the now 11 strings, keeping only the one that is the closest to the target. Repeat. You will arrive at the target string in only a few dozen generations.

Don't misunderstand the analogy; there is no "target" in evolution. But the most important part of evolution is modelled: non-random selection. In the WEASEL program the selection is done by looking at a target; in the real world of living organisms, selection occurs simply by differential reproductive success.

[Skidoo]

[ QUOTE ]
Bull[censored].

The second half of their argument is totally ridiculous as well, as is easily understood by anyone who has read The Blind Watchmaker and knows about the WEASEL program.

Take any random string of letters:

ADKJFG AVIEUYRHV PIERNXCPKJG

And a target phrase:
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL

There are 27 different characters that can fit in any one of those slots, of which there are 28, so there are 27^28 (about 1.2x10^40) different possible combinations. Take the original phrase an produce say 10 "daughter phrases" that vary from the parent by only one character each, which is randomly changed. Discard 10 of the now 11 strings, keeping only the one that is the closest to the target. Repeat. You will arrive at the target string in only a few dozen generations.

Don't misunderstand the analogy; there is no "target" in evolution. But the most important part of evolution is modelled: non-random selection. In the WEASEL program the selection is done by looking at a target; in the real world of living organisms, selection occurs simply by differential reproductive success.

[/ QUOTE ]

Incorrect analogy.

In the weasel program, the selector references a desired final output as the basis of each selection.

The equivalent in evolution of species would be for each incremental adaptation to be, in addition to differentially reproductively successful in its own right, somehow also coordinated to efficiently converge toward a result with a novel adaptation absent in earlier stages (the same way the content of the final weasel sentence cannot be inferred from earlier scrambled phrases).

This would be the analogous process. Unless you're going to argue that sort of determinism, what remains is an astronomical ratio of trials to successes.