cypress

I disagree with your characterization. Are you suggesting that it is valid to make an appeal to ignorance and a less parsimonious explanation to prop up the idea of a past infinite mass in this universe? I am guessing you would not.

It is primarily the static head of the water column though in some cases the liquid in the pore space supports the geologic formations and thus they contribute as geopresured zones.

A universe of fixed mass forever expanding outward does not improve probability the way Skeptic proposed because it does not and cannot add unobserved probabilistic resources for events that occurred in the past. As I indicated above it is not the correct way to estimate probability unless one knows that the mass of this universe (and therefore the amount of probabilistic resources) was infinite at the time that life occurred. Since we can only make assumptions about the mass of the universe beyond the observable horizon, if there is any universe beyond that and this is a huge if, we cannot know. As far as the probability of finite or infinite goes, it is not a 50-50 proposition. Since we don't have any experience with infinite material things, Occam's razor hacks away at the idea of infinity and leaves only finite. This is a topic for another thread. Start one if you wish. We don't "fortunately know that order tends to rise from chaos". On the contrary the laws of thermodynamics ensure that forming order requires still higher order, and chemistry plus energy forms chemical structures of equal or lesser order. Deterministic repeating structure is not a lower entropy (and therefore higher order) system. Simple repeating patterns are not complex. Although this is an interesting area of inquiry, bringing in non-random processes is off topic. consider starting a new thread if you wish to discuss this further.

The holes are lack of electrons in the silicon due to the doped material capturing some of them from the silicon. The current will ultimately flow through the silicon since there is not a contiguous path from one doped atom to the next. So with p-type we have silicon that is ready to receive electrons and the silicon has a positive charge even though the material as a whole is neutral. Yes they are looking for electrons and once they get them there will be no additional propensity for current flow unless there is a positive external potential pulling the now excess electrons out of the silicon to open up new holes for more electrons. So a current will flow if you hook the p-type material to an external positive potential and no flow if you hook it to an external negative potential (since the negative potential will flood the silicon with electrons and fill the holes). Remember it is only because there are holes that large currents will flow. Once the holes are filled there will be no more current flow. Think about what you would need to do to keep current flowing ----> make holes. To make holes ----> pull out more electrons. The doped material gives up electrons to the silicon so the silicon has an excess of electrons but the n-type plate overall has a neutral charge so just gluing the thing together does nothing. It is only when you hook up external potential that the magic starts. Hopefully you see that they do need energy but it is not because of the silicon's natural resistance to flow.... the doping material eliminates/reduces the resistance by creating electron bridges and holes that allow for unimpeded flow as long as you keep replacing them as they are "used" ..... it is because the external potentials (energies) are needed to replenish the positive holes (electron sink) and negative bridges (electron source). It takes work to keep the fire stoked. If you applied a positive charge to the base and negative charges to both the collector and the emitter would cause both to send electrons to the base and it would be a double diode, but if you apply a negative charge to the emitter and a positive charge to the collector then you would get a current amplifier. Keep in mind that the amplification is a current amplifier not a voltage amplifier. and the amplification is not relative to the battery current, it is collector current relative to the base current. The current (energy) has to come from somewhere, there is no free lunch, and this somewhere is the battery. It is easy to take a transistor and simulate a voltage amplifier, just add resistors to the base and collector and take voltage taps off the resistors. So it is increased amps. You connect the negative to the emitter and positive to the base and collector. You feed electrons to the emitter to replenish the electron bridges that collapse into the bases holes and pull electrons from the base to replenish the holes that get filled by the collapsed bridges and the rest of the electron bridges "fling" electrons over to the collector because the potentials created cause most of the electrons to jump the bridges and overshoot the holes. So to speak anyway. To see if you got it, I'll let you try to fix the error in your example. Yes but for most transistors it is not one to one, it is more like one to twenty and it is a function of voltage applied to the base to. A little positive voltage on the base gives you one to two while a lot of voltage gives you one to one hundred. In addition they are influenced by the voltage biasing between the base and the collector so you can get all kinds of complex amplifications until you overdrive it and then the collector current hits a ceiling (and in the case of audio you blow out your speakers due to high frequency overtones). Hope this helps, this is not easy stuff to understand.

I have struggled since you suggested this on how to introduce this new thread and where to put it. How about you get it started?

my response to this is here. New Post

In another post I offered an analysis by Fred Hoyle indicating life by chance alone was astronomically poor. In response Skeptic suggested life by change alone could be improved by bringing in resources from a hypothetical infinite universe. Since this discussion was not the primary purpose of the original post I offer this thread to explore the idea further. Here is Skeptic's explanation. I see at least three issues with this analysis. First off it is not clear that an infinite universe is real or even possible. Even it it were possible and was real it is not clear that expansion would actually obscure any part of the universe from our vantage point even though one can create a mathematical model that does, it does not mean that the model is correct or even the only workable one. Second, I am aware that if one assumes expansion, one can derive probabilities near 50% given the assumption. If one chooses other models compatible with General Relativity then the probability of a substantially larger universe than what is observable approaches 0. The choice of assumption is arbitrary and primarily based on metaphysical bias. Since the probability of an infinite universe is based on an arbitrary presumption, we can't say if the estimate is real or not. This seems more like putting an appeal to ignorance (about the extent of the universe) into a chance wrapper and claiming one has made a good point. It is creative though, I'll give you that. Finally, it lacks causal adequacy since we have no experience of any material thing having a property that is infinite. On the other hand math has many known concepts with no real counterpart and thus it is possible that infinity is a mathematical construct alone.

One of the realities about polls is that the results are heavily influenced by how the questions are asked. The 1991 Gallup poll has been significantly improved to get a better understanding of what "scientists" or better what those with technical degrees actually think about this topic. A more recent poll from 2004 finds that 68% of those in the US with natural and applied science degrees do not accept the idea that life as we know it today is a product of natural processes alone. This percentage drops away as one migrates closer to biology but it is far different from the 99.9% and the 95% numbers being cited. Another poll of Physicians only put the number at 60% disagreeing with a natural only explanation. One of the biggest reasons for the difference is that "evolution" is a term that has a broad set of definitions. If by evolution one means change over time you get the 99.9% number if by evolution one means that all observed diversity is a product of genetic mutation and natural selection, one gets a number of about 60%. All this to say that forufes has a point that the posting is misleading and one might consider revising it.

In the early stages the cell grows and stores up energy and building materials plus it begins to build some key structures used in the process then the DNA is duplicated then spits/separates during mitosis and then immediately following that during cytokinesis the nuclei and the balance of the organelles and membranes are duplicated and then the cell divides.

No that does not appear to be the case. There is not a relationship between presumed age and genome size. Also it does not appear to be the case that organism populations accumulate any substantial loads of junk over the millennia (although certainly the genome does pick up some nonfunctional noise since some errors do occur. The Junk DNA prediction which reasons that given the process of random genetic errors and natural selection, and in order to provide the raw material for advantageous modifications, genetic junk should accumulate over time. But this idea appears to be false. Recent research indicates that any junk that does accumulate tends to get switched off and eliminated over time in a constrained resource environment.

I recall that there were a couple from my days doing reaction kinetics for reactor designs. Perry's Handbook has a section on this and I think my old textbook does too. I'll have a look on Monday.

Interesting, but your conclusion is based on a presupposition about how life might have first started. Change that presupposition and your conclusion of likelihood can change dramatically. For example why assume just one kind of original life form? Why assume proto-life spontaneously forms? Yes because we know some things about newtonian physics and buildings and this information allows us to eliminated alternatives. In the case of past relatedness we lack the information that would allow us to reduce the alternatives. No not complex or intricate, but to suggest it is necessity is faulty logic. Just because we reproduce does not make it a necessity that all species are related. It might be so, but it might not be so.

Fewer than 10 is definitely short in my opinion. What's long for that matter? Given the relative rarity of functional proteins as compared to the totality of sequences (less than 1 in 10^74) it makes perfect sense that we find an abundance of similarity throughout life. How do you figure mere similarity (often less than 50% sequence similarity) makes it far more possible that we came from a very long line than from a short line?

Ah if that's all and if it is more logical necessity than evidence then the evidence must be weak also.

If this is what you took from my words than I misspoke. The overall message from my posts in total should indicate my position.

If you have nothing other than personal attacks against another poster then site rules suggest you should say nothing. This is now two posts of yours about my post with no substance, just attacks. If you are not prepared to back up your claims then it would be better to keep your personal opinions about others to yourself. Several in this post have stated that there is no evidence that thi universe or anything in it was created. It is a false statement. Reject the evidence if you like and admit you are rejecting it but claiming there is none simply does not wash.

Is it logical necessity or presupposition? Is it not logically possible that some living species are descended from short lines of species? Is there some logical reason that cannot be some other way? It's not so much that I doubt there exist very long lines of offspring, it's just that we should try to be accurate lest we oversell our favored ideas.

This statement sounds like a metaphysical presupposition. I don't see how one can estimate likelihood. How were you able to determine the likelihood of your truth statement? Am I? In a parallel thread I have provided two pieces of evidence for a creator of this universe and then life in it. We are unable to offer a natural alternative to mind for either of these pieces of evidence. So we can perceive the presence of the "fish" when one looks in the right place and that is not a circular argument and it is not assertion. If you disagree, by all means enter the discussion and show how natural causes operating today do generate fine tuned systems and digitally encoded functional information. I think your blinders are showing.

Why would one include modifications that are functionally neutral and therefore don't alter information content? Lenski shows us what we already know when he demonstrates large numbers of sequence modifications. Given the mutation rate and genome size one can expect a mutation every 1200 divisions. With the quantity of colonies Lenski's researchers monitored they were getting every single nucleotide replaced every 15 to 30 days. Compare this to the rate in mammals over geologic time where it took/takes 1000's to 100,000's of years to replace every nucleotide. Obviously Lenski was getting modifications and we did not need his experiment to demonstrate this. However very few advantageous modifications were accumulating. In fact there was just one in over 30,000 generations. I think it is time to return to the primary point because these side issues get us nowhere and only obscure the issue. Known evolutionary processes do not accomplish what is predicted, they do not accumulate functional change at the pace required. They don't because we observe that they do not generate functional information at a pace significantly faster than blind search and this makes sense because information entropy laws constrain the increase in information to that of a blind search unless information is imported. Natural processes must conform to the rules of thermodynamics and probability. The staggering amount of digitally encoded functional information required for life is evidence that a mind was the cause of life.

I would ask you to explain that number but it is so ridiculous and unsupportable I won't bother. I doubt even you accept that number since after you answered that you thought there was a reasonable probability that life from non-life occurred by random chemic processes alone you then said it likely included non-chance components. Just because a hypothetical process includes multiple steps does not change the fundamentals. The analysis is unchanged by me correcting an error in the your and Sisyphus' argument. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the details of these analyses. Relevance is unchanged.

Here is the fallacy of your logic. when you send someone to your freezer for fish, the freezer is a very rational place to be looking for it especially since you implied there would be fish there and the person looking logically reasons it should be there and if it is there they should see it, smell it and touch it. Since they don't, it is rational to conclude it is not there. However if you send them to find fish in your freezer and having looked in the shower they return declaring you have no fish, they have made a logical error. The more likely reason you have not found evidence for a creator is because you have not or cannot look in the proper places. Why should you expect this of a creator? You are looking in the shower for frozen fish.

I say the patterns are not very complex and one that you should easily see repeating in shape space numerously just as observers have found, but if you find meaning in it, don't let me dissuade you.

Not at all. I use chance alone to distinguish the mechanism from other proposals that include various self or guided ordering mechanisms. Hoyle's numbers are based on this assumption of chance and chemic properties of the direct constituents alone. Hoyle chose the method he did to make it a demonstrate the absurdity of claiming life arose by chance alone. You seem to find it fallacious because you reject the premise outright without even evaluating his analysis. It seems odd that you are arguing this since we both agree chance alone is a non-starter. Wow I am surprised you put any faith at all in such odds. But in any case these analyses are combinatorial probabilities that do not require life in one step. So it is not necessary to stipulate life in one step for these analyses. The observation that some biological systems cease one or more primary functions if certain key components are removed is a good and valid argument, but it is not what I intended just now. Instead I note that suggesting that many short peptides have weak catalytic activity is irrelevant cherry picking since the vast majority of biological systems require proteins altogether different from this example. One the whole fewer than one in 10^74 protein sequences greater than 150 units are functional and the vast majority of proteins are longer than 150 units. I am also aware that there are examples of short stepwise pathways from a weakly functional enzyme to a specialized enzyme but only if a mind (the researcher) specifically constructs the weak enzyme. I consider this cherry picking as well. lol, Please don't mischaracterize my position. I accept that change and diversification has occurred over time, I question how the changes occurred given that current evolutionary processes have not been observed to generate such change in a timeframe that would be required to be consistent with the geologic record. I think we need to throw the current proposals in the dustbin and find the actual processes involved.

No, I was simply making an accounting distinction in how to describe substantive differences in the human genome vs. primate example. Don't miss the forest for the trees, it is just one of millions of cases and it was offered to illustrate the challenge which is that nobody has yet demonstrated that known evolutionary processes do actually generate new form and function in the timeframe indicated by the fossil record no matter which example is chosen. New form and function is the focus because it is easiest to identify but one could easily include all modifications in that statement. The diversity in the genome of species that are thought to have a common ancestor represent differences in the digital information content of the DNA and this kind of information is a not only a convenient way of measuring the functional content but it is also a marker of a process derived by mind since thus far only intelligent agents are observed capable of deriving digitally encoded functional information. this is evidence that life was created by a causal power with a mind, and it is this that is the topic of this thread. Let's not lose focus. Yes I agree this would be an interesting approach to discover what is required to generate functional systems. The challenge in conducting these kinds of tests is to avoid conformational bias and other errors by not inadvertently inserting information into the algorithm and thus helping the algorithms to succeed. In probability theory, it has been shown that on average over the range of fitness landscapes, no search function outperforms blind search. It is called the No Free Lunch Theorem. If you wish to discuss this as a potential solution to the challenge posed by information perhaps a new thread would be good for this topic too.

Perhaps so, I have not had the time or energy to locate the original source. However irrespective of that example, the basic premise remains that we do not observe any natural processes generating large quantities of information significantly faster than a blind search. Furthermore in order for known evolutionary processes to account for observed diversity of life, one would look at the required rate of information increase throughout geologic time and compare it to the rate of increase we do observe. When this comparison is made, it fails. I have seen these analyses made three or four times now. Once using malaria and the human hosts as an example, once with whale evolution, once in an analysis of gene expression controls and once with regard to the increase in phylum during the Cambrian. I don't agree with your distinction because the criteria in either case should be whether or not the alteration ultimately spreads or exists in the entire population of a unique species and another species or the orginal species retains the original. In that case functional information is increased regardless of the nature of the alteration (agin keeping in mind that only alterations that change function or form are included, since information is equal if two sequences have the identical function). The main problem we are having is you seem to presuppose a mechanism even in discussing the changes. If we drop the presupposition and remain focused on the fact of the changes, then I don't see how it matters.