The Origin of the human Family (part II)
II) The statistic of self-replication
Has any theoretical research been done into the (im)possibility of generating information specifically through the Darwinian mechanism (random variation and natural selection)? Yes! Expressed in physical terms, the requirement would be that imperfectly self-replicating systems competing for resources inevitably increase their complexity i.e. lower their entropy (disorder). So let's have a look at the statistical physics of self-replicating machines. First some background is presented, followed by a discussion of the literature and finally the conclusions are presented.
§ Thermodynamics describes systems consisting of many particles where individual particles behave statistically and only mean-values are important. (Regular) thermodynamics has a second law that says that entropy (disorder) only increases (strictly speaking, does not decrease). This law is not (directly) applicable to (the development of) life because it can only be applied to closed systems close to equilibrium. Therefore, we direct ourselves to the foundation of the law in statistical physics as it was discovered by Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906 AD) and which is expressed in his famous equation: S/kB = ln(g).
The equation of Boltzmann says that there is a correlation between the entropy (S) of a system and the amount of states (g) that this system can have.
For example, in a large container of air the air particles can be in many more places than in a small container. If we have 10 particles that can each be located in 10 different places, then this system has an entropy of S/kB = 10 ln(10). However, if the same particles can each be located in 100 different places, then the entropy becomes S/kB = 10 ln(100). You can see that it would be a huge coincidence if all the particles would be in the exact same corner. That's in general the case: systems inescapably tend to disorder because it is so much more likely. As much as half of all possible states are located within ln(2) of the most disordered one! See also comments about this in the separate blog post on Quantum Free Will.
This tendency toward disorder, which can be compared to a force, can be cleverly exploited in heat systems such as an internal combustion engine or a refrigerator. In the first you put heat in and you get movement out, while in the second movement of the refrigerant gas causes that heat is taken out. In both cases, heat is cleverly channeled to get a useful result. This nevertheless requires a machine representing a certain amount of information. In addition heat processes necessarily run with low efficiency because their usefulness and entropy increase are directly linked.
§ The heat system that is most important to us is the sun. Its light rays produce oxygen and the organic matter we live from in green plants by means of photosynthesis. So let's take a look at the workings of the sun.
Gravitational compression of the extended hydrogen gas changes its potential (gravity) energy into kinetic energy (heat). At sufficiently high temperatures, nuclear fusion produces even more heat and so stops the compression and allows the temperature to increase further. A sufficiently large part of the enormous heat released reaches us as light that can be used efficiently. The big difference in temperature between the sun and the earth is crucial for this.
Different aspects come together to achieve this wonderful effect: first, a high-energy initial state of the hydrogen nuclei, both in terms of gravity and regarding the nuclear force; further, the fine-tuning of the gravitational attraction, the electromagnetic repulsion, the attraction of the strong nuclear force and the conversion by the weak nuclear force to yield the correct size and temperature of the sun; finally, the quantum properties of the light to provide a useful energy distribution. And so the laws of nature themselves function as a machine to let the sun produce usable light for us. More about the wonderful information content of the laws of nature can be found in the blog post The Anthropic Principle.
A high efficiency (corresponding to a low increase in disorder) can only be achieved in (electro-mechanical) machines that do not use random processes (heat) and disorder, but transform ordered energy (or information) from one form to another. Examples are electric motors (which convert electricity into motion) or computers (e.g. displaying data from the hard drive on a screen). [NB even though a computer produces heat (which limits its efficiency), it is not a heat machine because the (waste) heat is a by-product and is not intrinsically part of the information process] The machine itself must generally be highly ordered (contain a lot of information) to be able to accomplish the task. Ideally, with perfect efficiency (no losses) the machine functions as a physical (quantum) mechanical (Hamiltonian) system that retains information from input to output.
A special type of electro-mechanical machine is a robot that transforms ordered energy into an ordered form of matter that itself is another machine. An example is a robot in a car factory that assembles a car. Such a task is much more complex than those of other types of machines, making robots much more ordered (so they must contain much more information). A robot is generally not very efficient because the ordering process of the matter involved contains many frictional forces.
A special type of robot is one that builds another robot, let's call it a replicating robot. An example is the robot that built the car-building robot (although that probably happened piecewise and people had to be involved). Its efficiency will be comparable to that of a normal robot, but its level of organization (information content) must again be strongly increased since it again performs a significantly more complex task.
The pinnacle of robot design would be one that can build a copy of itself. It then looks like a living cell that can replicate using elementary materials [NB if composite parts were used instead of elementary materials, it would of course not be very special anymore]. It's not difficult to see that this again requires a strong increase in complexity (information). Moreover, natural selection can only function at this highest level since only here a chain of (comparable) machines is possible. But without intrinsic variations that can do no more than eliminate replication errors, in other words prevent degeneration. And everyone knows, the more complicated a machine, the more can go wrong. . .
The natural way in populations to achieve self-replication with changes is through sexual reproduction, in which part of the (genes of the) father and part of the (genes of the) mother combine to form an equivalent but (genetically) different child. The child therefore does not contain any genetic information that not already previously existed in the father or mother. Natural selection can also work on this, but then it serves only to limit the range of possibilities (the genetic diversity in the population) by eliminating individuals (again degeneration), never to increase diversity. In addition, every length change of the genes is directly hampering reproduction (because they wouldn't fit anymore with those of the other sex). Hence, sexual reproduction is detrimental to evolution. Gregor Mendel (Augustine abbot, 1822-1884 AD) already confirmed the exceptional stability of races.
Instead, imperfect clones are the most promising way for reproduction with improvements (evolution). Nevertheless this does require a continuous (genetic) path of working clones between the original and the final, improved version. In addition, this path must be a continuous improvement otherwise natural selection would stop evolution.
Given the enormous complexity required to be a (working) self-replicating unit (which indicates the extremely small part of the space of all possibilities that self-replicating units occupy), the existence of such a path that connects the original with the final improved version would be nothing less than miraculous! [NB and therefore no scientific explanation; moreover we haven't even discussed speciation yet]
IIa) Literature
How then does the professional literature on self-replicating machines compare with the conclusions reached here?
The most prominent scientist in this field is Jeremy England (b. 1982), a young MIT professor with degrees from Harvard, Oxford, Stanford and Princeton. His main publication on this topic is even titled “the Statistical Physics of Self-replication” [NB www.englandlab.com/uploads/7/8/0/3/7803054/2013jcpsrep.pdf] and is from 2013. Its main result (formula 8 in the document) describes a process in which a self-replicator + the necessary materials turn into two such machines. It expresses that the heat produced in the process must be sufficient to compensate for the (internal) increase in order + the improbability of the process so that the total entropy change is positive. Doesn't really seem earth-shattering to me, one can even argue (on the basis of Boltzmann's equation) that the improbability of the process is related to the increase of the internal order which would leave only two independent terms.
Formula 10 effectively expresses the same thing, but applied to a
’master equation’ model: the ratio of the (maximum) production capacity and the wear rate of replicators is equal to an exponential of the heat productivity plus the rate of increase of (internal) entropy (so disorder, not order!).
To my surprise, the equation is then interpreted as if it would say that evolution supports efficient, simple machines with not so durable parts as all this maximizes the production speed given a certain amount of heat produced. Assuming it is possible to interpret the equation in such a way, then what it actually expresses is that for a certain amount of (net) heat produced, most replicators can be produced if they are disordered and break down quickly; in other words, the exact opposite of biological evolution [NB in addition, the required complexity of replicators or the (im)possibilities of continuous improvements are not addressed].
The rest of the publication (most of it) makes estimates of different biological systems and concludes that they are very efficient (ordered and durable?). And so it seems to (wrongly) suggest a positive relationship with the previous interpretation.
Then at the end of 2014, prof England published a preprint called ”the Statistical Physics of Adaptation” [NB arxiv.org/abs/1412.1875] which builds on his earlier publication by means of some models of driven systems. He is writing that evolution is biologically established and that it is now up to physics to explain it; I think this creates severe doubts about the objectivity of his work. It is striking that he admits that the results are "mysterious" to him.
Finally, at the beginning of 2015, prof England wrote the extensive preprint called ”the Distribution of Macroscopic Observables in Driven Systems” [NB arxiv.org/abs/1501.00238]; this one also doesn't support the evolution mechanism.
Three recent publications (at the time of writing) by others had a similar goal:
• ”Constructor Theory of Life” published by Marletto in Interface in 2015 [NB arxiv.org/abs/1407.0681]
• ”Statistical Thermodynamics of the Origin of Life” a 2014 preprint by Behr [NB aaronbehr.me/files/behr_patterns_mtp.pdf]
• a long discussion of evolutionary models from 2015 by Rivoir [NB arxiv.org/abs/1504.07761].
In the best case they do not support the thesis that the Darwinian mechanism leads to evolution, in the worst case they even undermine it; thus they correspond well with the work of prof England.
Michael Behe (catholic professor of biochemistry, born 1952) has
searched ten thousand biology articles for explanations of how so-called irreducibly complex systems could have arisen but could only find vague suggestions (see the 2nd edition of his book "Darwin's black box"). Apparently also in the professional biology literature no support can be found for evolution by the Darwinian mechanism. From this study, prof Behe determined that the limit of microevolution is a double substitution.
Conclusion: There are three independent reasons to say that the (neo-)Darwinian mechanism cannot cause evolution: our own reasoning, the physics literature and the biology literature; in short, 'Darwin' can be written off theoretically [NB see also the book "Icons of Evolution" by Jonathan Wells (born in 1942)]. By the way this is also in accordance with the previous general principle of the preservation of information in science. Remarkably, this is even admitted by the experts: “Darwinism is over, its adherents don't believe in it anymore” [NB Guiseppe Sermonti, professor of genetics from Peruggia during the conference on the origin of life in Blois on the Loire, 1991; the macro-evolution congress in Seattle had already reached the same conclusion in 1980: www.evolutionnews.org/nytimes.jpg].
The bankruptcy of Darwinism is actually best represented by the splendor of the peacock tail: very complex on various levels, completely impractical and of little use to impress the females ;-)
IIb) Scientific facts
Without scientific explanation, evolution could still have happened historically (namely, as a series of miraculous events). What observations could indicate that? The two main classes have already been mentioned: fossils and genetic comparisons. In addition, embryology, specific genetic experiments and the (lack of) functions of DNA and organs have been claimed to support an evolutionary history. Finally, from homology [NB the connection between the biological functioning and the genetic blueprint of an organism] and from the classification of the animal kingdom in a 'tree of life' there's also something to say about it. Let's look at them one by one.
• in the 19th century, the general position of scientists was that no change in species from the fossil record could be inferred [NB also not from ancient Egyptian depictions according to Cuvier, 1769-1832 AD, an authoritative naturalist of the time]. Darwinists attributed this to its incompleteness, but to this day not much has changed in that respect: species suddenly appear in the fossil record (hence the name 'Cambrian Explosion') and only before there were people; moreover, they have always been essentially stable [NB see, among others, the book by Niles Eldredge (born 1943) ”A history of evolution” from 1998 and www.uvm.edu/˜jdavison/davison-manifesto.html]. And why should S.J. Gould (1941-2002 AD) otherwise have thought up the theory of "Punctuated Equilibrium"? There is something that needs an explanation! In addition, Richard Dawkins (b. 1941), the most outspoken promoter of evolution, acknowledged it implicitly in his 2009 book "The Greatest Show on Earth" (and earlier in 1996), because he presents the fossil archive only as “supporting evidence” for those who are already convinced.
∆ even long-time claims of 'missing links' appear to be increasingly dismissed as intermediate forms: T. Neville-George wrote as early as 1960 in ”Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective”: “the amount of fossils is almost unmanageable increased. And yet they paint a picture of mainly gaps" and "the gaps are real and similar to the gaps that we find in today's world”
Archeopterix was the great confirmation for Darwin as a reptile–bird intermediate, but now turns out to be an ordinary bird. The Coelacanth was once the missing link between fish and land animals until a living specimen was found, then it became a living fossil and now it has evolved normally; yet the fossil record has not changed, i.e. evolution apparently does not depend on the fossil record. The Cro-magnon man and the Neanderthals were represented as half apes, but now turn out to be just as human as ourselves or the Aboriginals. ”Piltdown Man” even turned out to be a fraud (which 500 PhD studies failed to uncover) and "Nebraska Man" was based on nothing more than a tooth. Australopithecin appears to be indistinguishable from a chimpanzee-like, just as Homo Habilis and Homo Rudolfensis turn out to be just some species of monkeys.
∗ there are also indications that the generally used dating of sediment layers is unreliable in case of currents [NB see www.sedimentology.fr and www.bible.ca/tracks/rapid-layers.htm].
† strong confirmation of this is radiocarbon dating of dinosaur bones showing that they were several tens of thousands and not many millions of years old [NB previously on www.dinosaurc14ages.com]; and how else could they contain soft tissue as discovered not too long ago? In addition, images of dinosaurs have been found in ancient cultures. Despite the actual radiocarbon results not being available anymore online, they seem to be acknowledged pretty generally now, although supposedly they are caused by (very old??) colonies of bacteria inside the dinosaur bones which would even be responsible for causing the vessel-like structures?! [see phys.org/news/2019-07-hidden-life-revealed-dinosaur-bones.html] And so because of undesirable results the only reliable dating method is suddenly declared not to be reliable anymore...
• Gavin de Beer already reported in his book ”Homology: an unsolved problem” from 1971 that homology does not generally yield a correspondence between the genes and the appearance of an organism (cf. 'convergent evolution'). This is problematic for evolution because the functioning of an organism depends on its appearance and its heredity on his genes; and both should have been continuously changing together [NB see also the 1985 book "Evolution a theory in crisis" by Michael Denton (self-declared evolutionist and agnostic, born 1943)]. The 'C-value enigma' (the unrelatedness of the complexity of an organism and the length of its genome) is a concrete example of this. In short, transitional forms are impossible.
∆ (breeding) experiments in general are no success for support of evolution [NB see isereengod.blogspot.nl/2015/03/bespiegelingen-op-macro-evolution-1.html of Dean Kenyon (born 1939) an retired prof in biology from San Francisco and ex-Darwinist; as a dissident he has experienced censorship and opposition] and specifically experiments with fruit flies (the favorite test organism of biologists because of its variability and fast reproduction) have never produced anything but a fruit fly [NB see www.basfeijen.nl/evolution/fruitfly.htm and otherwise you would certainly have heard of it ;)]. Resistant bacteria (an oft-cited example of beneficial 'evolution') by the way can't compete with the non-resistant ones after the anti-biotics are taken away.
✓ in embryology we are still taught that human embryos have 'gill slits' and do not differ from animals [NB see e.g. the "New Catholic Encyclopedia" from 2003] despite that this infamous fraud case of Ernst Haeckel of 100 years ago has already been known for more than half a century.
° Advanced research in genetics has also disproved previous 'evidence' for evolution: a lack of genetic distinction between apes and humans (they now appear to be 4 to 6% of all genes, and even 17% for genes associated with the brain; in addition, there is a length difference as high as 10%), and that most of the DNA is 'junk' (for most of it recently a function has been found). The research also shows that there is still a lot to learn about our DNA: multiple layers of encryption have been discovered (the once thought 'degenerate' codons are now called duons for regulating the pause & the binding site when copying the DNA, ”intron/exon” boundary conditions ensure that a piece DNA encodes for multiple proteins just as overlapping genes and backward-oriented promoters do) and the latest discovery in genetics is actually a whole new field, namely epigenetics. All this shows the unimaginable amount of information stored in each cell of our body; this realization has even led scientists to claim that our DNA comes from an extraterrestrial intelligence [NB see www.evolutionnews.org/2013/03/a_wow_signal_of069941.html] It's very funny how people don't realize that this requires a non-material creator since he cannot itself exist out of DNA . . .
# what applies to 'junk' DNA, applies in the same way to 'rudimentary' organs, 'remnants of evolutionary development': once man had as many as 100 of them, now for (almost) all a function has been found.
* what does Ken Miller (the catholic evolution expert, born 1948) then see as the strongest evidence for (historical) evolution? One specific human chromosome that looks like a glued-together version of two chromosomes from (great-)apes [NB see www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8FfMBYCkk]. But as (great-)apes are not biologically identical with, but are similar to, humans why would that be different for (the functioning of) the chromosomes? And if no functional reason for its genetic difference is found, it becomes a similar argument from ignorance as of the 'junk' DNA and the rudimentary organs. In other words 'evolution of the holes'. Besides, a claim that something is “only explicable by evolution” in my opinion makes it already clear that we are dealing with nothing but suggestion.
In short, I can't find any scientific fact that pleads for historical evolution (again: the idea that life evolved from few simple organisms to many, different and complex organisms over a long period), neither from experiments, nor from fossils, nor from embryology, nor from homology, nor from genetic comparisons, genetic functionality or genetic variations in populations [NB see also the book ”The wonder of the world (a journey from modern science to the mind of God)” by Roy Abraham Varghese from 2004 for comparable evolutionary critique (and striking similarities with my blog posts The Anthropic Principle, Catholic Civilization, Quantum Free Will, and the Mother of Proofs of God)].
On the contrary, all relevant fields of science point to the opposite: life did not evolve, but is very stable and beautifully designed. Maciej Giertych (BSc from Oxford, PhD from Toronto, DSc from Poznan and prof in genetics at the Institute of Dendrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kornik) additionally wrote: “I've been taught that paleontology provides a wealth of evidence for evolution. To my surprise, I found that evidence is lacking, not
only in genetics but also in paleontology, in sedimentology, in
dating techniques, and in fact in all sciences.”
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