Why Darwinian Evolutionists Hate Mathematicians

[TVDOC]

Over the course of my several decades in the hard sciences in both academia and the commercial arena, I have been asked numerous times by well meaning students, colleagues, and coworkers how I could reconcile my belief in Christianity, with the realities of the scientific world.  My answer was always the same........"I have never found a conflict..........". These conversations ultimately lead to a discussion of Evolution, and how that calculates into my worldview.  In order to come to grips with this topic, I will refer to a conversation that I had with an esteemed mathematics Professor, who became a good friend of mine, and although he has now gone to his reward (also a Christian) his words were inspirational to me, both as a scientist, and as a Christian.

I recently read a book which contained a paraphrased version of this story, and it reminded me that it was a topic that should be discussed here.

To the best of my memory, my mathematician friend's words were as follows:

"When a scientist tells you that 'the science is settled' in regard to any subject, he or she has ceased to be a scientist, and has become an evangelist for one cult or another.  The entire history of science is very simply that nothing is ever settled...........new discoveries are being made on a continuous basis, and are constantly setting aside that which was held as commonly true".

"Most people believe that the scientific theories and theses of their particular time are the right ones, and what remains for scientists to do is to expand and develop wondrous new technologies from their absolute understanding of nature's laws, mechanisms, and structures........many scientists believe that they live in the age of ultimate enlightenment, and become so committed to a particular theory that they spend entire careers desperately defending a concept, even as new discoveries rapidly destroy it."

"Aristotle's idea that that the universe did not originate in a singular event, that it has always been here, was the unanimous and virtually unchallenged scientific view for 2300 years, and it was only a few years ago that we discovered that the universe was expanding, driven outward by the "Big Bang" that began it all.  What was known and accepted as fact for two thousand three hundred years was patiently wrong.

"Now we come to why Evolutionists hate Mathematicians........the Evolutionist's numbers simply don't add up........Darwinian evolution is predicated on the fossil record proving that the theory was true, but there was no fossil record.......Darwin even knew that, and accounted for it by stating that Paleontologists had not, as yet, looked in the right places.  He predicted that in the next century, hundreds of dead-end versions of species would emerge that nature had selected out of the process.  More that a century and a half later, not one has been found.  In the Cambrian period, during a roughly five million year window, a hundred new phyla appeared, thousands of species.  They could have appeared in an instant, or steadily over that period.....we simply don't know.  However as mysteriously as their appearance was during this time.....no new phyla have appeared since, none have evolved. Today only thirty of the one hundred phyla have survived extinction, again, what from Darwin's perspective was a continuous process, no new phyla have evolved for millions of years".

"Darwinian evolution offends every mathematician that seriously thinks about it.........for the following reason........simplistically, lets assume the tiniest measure of time is the amount of time that a ray of light takes, travelling at 182,000 miles per second to cross the smallest distance on the molecular level of the universe.  For the sake of argument, lets say that is a millionth of a second.  The earth has been dated at roughly four billion years old......now if you multiply four billion by the number of millionths of a second in a single year, you get a staggeringly large number........arguably bigger than the number of grains of sand on the earth.  Now consider the complexity of a single gene.....it contains thousands of bits of biological data......each of which had to be acquired by mutation, according to Darwin, but the simplest worm on the face of the earth could not have evolved from a single-celled organism in four billion years if a mutation had happened every second.

"The minimun number of genes required to support cell function and reproduction in the simplest form of life is 256........our worm will have several thousand, and its estimated that the human genome may have between thirty and one hundred fifty THOUSAND genes, so if it is a mathematical impossibility for the worm to evolve during the four billion years of the earth's existence, how many more billions of years would be required for a human being to evolve".

End of anecdotal discussion:

Personal caveats:

I am not an evolutionist, paleontologist, or mathematician, nor do I insist on the validity of Creationism or "Intelligent Design" (as it has been explained to me)........I simply don't know........as a person trained in the scientific method, I simply follow where the facts and evidence leads me...........and use logic as my guide.  

Are my friend's comments valid?  I think so.........does this imply that an outside force acted in what we observe as life on this planet?  Setting my faith aside for a moment, I can arrive at no other conclusion based on what I see as evidence so far........

From this point science ends, and Faith continues.........

doc

[Carl]

That is the point the "hopeful monster" comes into play (was that Stephan Goulds theory,too lazy to look it up) which suggests evolution occurred in enormous leaps.

It disregards the provable facts that mutations are almost always detrimental and usually non reproducible as the "victim" is sterile.

It does however provide a basis for the magic of faith that they claim they don`t have as no longer is the inconvenience of the fossil record troubling.

[FGL]

That is awesome.

[The Night Owl]

It disregards the provable facts that mutations are almost always detrimental and usually non reproducible as the "victim" is sterile.

Not true. A lot of mutations go unnoticed simply because their effects aren't always obvious. Most mutations are neither harmful nor helpful.

[Carl]

Not true. A lot of mutations go unnoticed simply because their effects aren't always obvious. Most mutations are neither harmful nor helpful.

Okay if so then the point is?
Then they don`t result in evolutionary changes so the whole theory is baseless..is that your arguement?

Remember...gills to land based breathing to scales to feathers or fur.
That is what you have to have faith in having happened.

[The Night Owl]

"Now we come to why Evolutionists hate Mathematicians........the Evolutionist's numbers simply don't add up........Darwinian evolution is predicated on the fossil record proving that the theory was true, but there was no fossil record.......

The Precambrian fossil record is poor for a number of reasons but it is not nonexistant.  

"The minimun number of genes required to support cell function and reproduction in the simplest form of life is 256........our worm will have several thousand, and its estimated that the human genome may have between thirty and one hundred fifty THOUSAND genes, so if it is a mathematical impossibility for the worm to evolve during the four billion years of the earth's existence, how many more billions of years would be required for a human being to evolve".

Your friend was talking about Haldane's Dilemma, which isn't really a dilemma at all:

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/haldane1.html

Conclusion

Remember, Haldane's 1957 paper was a theoretical treatise on the cost of natural selection. Here is Haldane's conclusion, which is correct in both points:

"To conclude, I am quite aware that my conclusions will probably need drastic revision. But I am convinced that quantitative arguments of the kind here put forward should play a part in all future discussions of evolution."

[The Night Owl]

Okay if so then the point is?

The point is that you're wrong about most mutations being detrimental.

[Celtic Rose]

Not true. A lot of mutations go unnoticed simply because their effects aren't always obvious. Most mutations are neither harmful nor helpful.

If most mutations are unnoticed, how would we know that they have occurred? 

[thundley4]

If most mutations are unnoticed, how would we know that they have occurred? 

You have to believe it as a matter of FAITH.

[Carl]

The point is that you're wrong about most mutations being detrimental.

Which you know is bs when it comes to dramatic ones that would alter a life form.
You aren`t a very deep thinker are you.

[The Night Owl]

If most mutations are unnoticed, how would we know that they have occurred?  

http://www.sciencedaily.c.../2009/08/090827123210.htm

[The Night Owl]

You aren`t a very deep thinker are you.

No, I don't consider myself a very deep thinker but what I have going for me is that I'm curious about things.

[Carl]

No, I don't consider myself a very deep thinker but what I have going for me is that I'm curious about things.

Perhaps a reading of your own link would be helpful.

To establish the rate of mutation, the team examined an area of the Y chromosome. The Y chromosome is unique in that, apart from rare mutations, it is passed unchanged from father to son; so mutations accumulate slowly over the generations.

Despite many generations of separation, researchers found only 12 differences among all the DNA letters examined. The two Y chromosomes were still identical at 10,149,073 of the 10,149,085 letters examined. Of the 12 differences, eight had arisen in the cell lines used for the work. Only four were true mutations that had occurred naturally through the generations.

We have known for a long time that mutations occur occasionally in each of us, but have had to guess exactly how often. Now, thanks to advances in the technology for reading DNA, this new research has been possible.

Understanding mutation rates is key to many aspects of human evolution and medical research: mutation is the ultimate source of all our genetic variation and provides a molecular clock for measuring evolutionary timescales. Mutations can also lead directly to diseases like cancer. With better measurements of mutation rates, we could improve the calibration of the evolutionary clock, or test ways to reduce mutations, for example.

Even with the latest DNA sequencing technology, the researchers had to design a special strategy to search for the vanishingly rare mutations. They used next-generation sequencing to establish the order of letters on the two Y chromosomes and then compared these to the Y chromosome reference sequence.

Having identified 23 candidate SNPs - or single letter changes in the DNA - they amplified the regions containing these candidates and checked the sequences using the standard Sanger method. A total of four naturally occurring mutations were confirmed. Knowing this number of mutations, the length of the area that they had searched and the number of generations separating the individuals, the team were able to calculate the rate of mutation.

"These four mutations gave us the exact mutation rate - one in 30 million nucleotides each generation - that we had expected," says the study's coordinator, Chris Tyler-Smith, also from The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "This was reassuring because the methods we used - harnessing next-generation sequencing technology - had not previously been tested for this kind of research. New mutations are responsible for an array of genetic diseases. The ability to reliably measure rates of DNA mutation means we can begin to ask how mutation rates vary between different regions of the genome and perhaps also between different individuals."

[Celtic Rose]

http://www.sciencedaily.c.../2009/08/090827123210.htm

So they studied one family, found a total of 4 unnoticeable mutations to the DNA sequencing that resulted in no significant change over 13 generations.  

I don't think anybody questions whether DNA can change and mutate, the question is whether those mutations can actually be significant enough to create a new species.  I think the original point still stands.  To evolve from a single celled organism to a complex multi-celled organism requires frequent huge evolutionary changes. To produce the vast range of life that exists on earth would require extreme, near constant mutations, and we should be able to still see huge evolutionary leaps.

[FGL]

So they studied one family, found a total of 4 unnoticeable mutations to the DNA sequencing that resulted in no significant change over 13 generations.  

I don't think anybody questions whether DNA can change and mutate, the question is whether those mutations can actually be significant enough to create a new species.  I think the original point still stands.  To evolve from a single celled organism to a complex multi-celled organism requires frequent huge evolutionary changes. To produce the vast range of life that exists on earth would require extreme, near constant mutations, and we should be able to still see huge evolutionary leaps.

In other words it would take far too long to evolve from single celled creatures to what we have now in the timeline put forward by evolutionists?