He’s Baaaack: Evolution Professor Walks it Back, Then Forward, Then Back, Then …

When I explained how astronomically unlikely protein evolution is, a professor complained that I had it all wrong. When he saw evolution’s ridiculously long odds he figured I must be assuming that the entire protein sequence space must be randomly sampled to yield functional proteins.

Of course that’s not true and my calculations were, in fact, on the optimistic side for evolution.

Next the professor recommended a paper that would clear it all up by explaining that only a very limited fraction of the protein sequence space actually need be searched.

But of course the paper didn’t help. Even though its assumptions were completely ridiculous (e.g., protein evolution is explained by first assuming the earth is loaded with bacteria which are each chocked full of, yes, proteins), the paper nonetheless proved how unlikely is protein evolution. Even with their ridiculous assumptions, and giving evolution every advantage (e.g., assuming only part of a protein need be evolved, with the other parts already, somehow, evolved), protein evolution is 27 to 49 orders of magnitude from reality. That puts it somewhere between a myth and a fairy tale.

So next the professor explained that protein evolution—even though the subject of massive evolutionary assaults—is actually not part of evolution at all. “Evolutionary theory,” he said, “makes no claims about the origin of life.”

This is a favorite trick of evolutionists. Biology is incredibly complex and defies evolutionary musings, so evolutionists say that incredible complexity actually occurred in the beginning, when life first formed. Evolution proper, they say, took the helm at that point. It is another evolutionary shell game that reveals their desperation.

Next the professor said I was playing a “numbers game.” That was similar to what the paper said:

We hope that our calculation will also rule out any possible use of this big numbers ‘game’ to provide justification for postulating divine intervention.

As usual divine intervention was the target. It must, of course, be ruled out. After all, that’s not scientific and evolution is a fact.

Next the professor said such “numbers games” are futile because there is too much uncertainty:

The frivolity is in his probability calculations. Such calculations depend on such questionable assumptions that they are scientifically useless - though they seem to be useful to anti-evolution apologists.

I pointed out that I was using assumptions from the paper which he had recommended. Why was he now disparaging the assumptions as “questionable” and “scientifically useless”?

Now the professor says that he did not disparage the paper but rather my use of the paper. But all I did was use the results from the paper.

But since I pointed out that those results were ridiculously optimistic, the professor now says we shouldn’t use those results because “probability calculations are only as good as the qualifying assumptions behind them.”

So let’s see, evolutionists provide the results, those results show evolution to be astronomically unlikely, but since the results, as bad as they are, are nonetheless unrealistically optimistic toward evolution, we should just drop the whole thing.

Right.

I’m not sure if this is just the Stuff of Good Solid Scientific Research or if the ball bearings are rolling.

Religion drives science, and it matters.