My overall hypothesis is that you can rule out the chance argument of evolution (though clearly evolution has occurred) when you understand how DNA & natural selection actually works – or is claimed to work would be more accurate. To be clear I am not necessarily arguing for the existence of (a)god or god-like principle – although that is of course one of the many possibilities. However, I am convinced that on the available evidence, you can demonstrate that the “random mutation acted on by natural selection as evolution” hypothesis (as espoused by the NeoDarwinists) is in fact for all practical purposes a mathematical and logical impossibility. In fact I ran a more advanced hypothetical calculation by ChatGPT – and it’s even more absurdly unlikely than I originally thought. It’s appended at the bottom.
So, that’s a bold claim I realise, but here’s how you can show it’s theoretically impossible and really falls at the first base. Let’s take the most common length of DNA that codes for a specific protein in humans and ignore the other million species/lifeforms on the planet. Whilst the codon lengths vary from the shortest at around 10 codons to the longest at 45,212, the most commonly in present is in fact 300 codons in length: where each codon of 3 letters codes for one amino acid. That average length would have say 300 codons and they would therefore code for 300 amino acids. The “letters” that make up the codons are usually labelled C, A, G or T. There are only 20 amino acids used in living things, and of the 64 possible codons, 63 code for all of the amino acids (in varying proportions) the other three permutations are the 3 stop codons: this is surprising in and of itself. When you look at the 3 types of amino acid (positive, negative charge and neutral) they are not in fact evenly distributed. This has the effect of stabilizing the folds even if there is some change. Aside from that unusual but conserving feature, the number of possible permutations of amino acid coding codons is 20×20×20…. 300 times. This is still so, even though some codons code for the same amino acid – just with different arrangements of letters – even given that it does in fact reduce the likelihood of a real change in the protein that’s coded for. The number of permutations, shakes down roughly to 10 to the power 390.31 or 10^390.31. Expressed precisely it’s 2.04×10^390 in “clean” maths notation. But there are only 10^82 atoms in the known universe!!!!! (https://www.livescience.com/how-many-atoms-in-universe.html#:~:text=This%20gives%20us%2010%5E82,number%20of%20approximations%20and%20assumptions.) But if you understand even basic maths, you will know that 10^390 is a number (almost) unimaginably larger than 10^82! To be precise it is 308 orders of magnitude larger than the number of atoms in the observable universe.
So the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution as is currently accepted relies on the notion of unintentional & essentially random changes in the DNA – however they occur there is no directionality to it – although there are restrictions – nothing is choosing the changes. These changes are either transcription errors during cell division (including sperm or egg creation), cosmic-ray induced changes & environmental damage changes to DNA being improperly error corrected – all ultimately causing changes to the genetic code. These are presumed in some cases to result in beneficial changes to the organism resulting in greater survivability for the organism, and therefore propagation of the said beneficial trait through the “gene pool”. There are a number of things that are casually skipped over in the overall narrative, such as where and how did such an elegant & powerful base 4 code arise – notably a self replicating code capable of coding for all life as we know it. Also, how did the first self-propagating cell arise with all the internal cellular machinery etc arise – ribosomes, enzymes to unravel the DNA, enzymes to finish the mRNA etc – also no mean feat. But we don’t even need to consider all that to show that it’s all an impossible scenario as it is expounded by the Neo-Darwinists.
Aside from the maths, there are are a number of serious insurmountable problems with this evolutionary viewpoint or perspective as espoused. First any such mutation would have to occur in the gametes (egg and sperm creation/storage areas) to enable the changes to be propagated to future generations. (https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Gamete#:~:text=A%20gamete%20is%20a%20reproductive,form%20a%20new%20diploid%20organism.) Then the change would have to be beneficial. To do that it would have to code for a protein which would lead to some significant or at least appreciable difference in the organism simply via the production or expression of this different protein. That protein in and of itself being expressed – would need to alter the organism sufficiently to make a difference to its survival prospects. It would also need to be a dominant gene or they would need to seek out and mate with another holder of the same recessive gene. Further it would need to be expressed in a part of the organism that actually produced a discernible or material change that was beneficial to the organisms chances of survival: a highly questionable assumption/requirement. For instance a useful new “eye component protein” but one expressing itself in the nose would not yield any benefit – and in all probability may even be a dis-benefit. To talk to this aspect, when fruit flies were irradiated with gamma radiation the parents did not die, but nearly all the offspring were either sterile, did not hatch or had other defects. There were some survivors with neutral or not obviously deleterious changes, but no positive changes were noted. To quote the final paragraph from this page of AI responses on the Muller experiments (see the link for full exchange): “so the general drift of the mutations, was towards harm & NOT adaptation”. Note my emphasis.
However the number of actually useful proteins is very small when compared to the total number of possible permutations which is 10^390. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1672022916301875#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20proteins%20in,9113)%20(Table%201).) This is because most of the permutations do not produce foldable and therefore useful proteins. Evidence of this has been produced by deliberately causing DNA damage to fruit flies using gamma rays. It was found that the offspring mostly just died because the genetic mutations as introduced by the gamma ray damage, produced changes in the proteins being produced which resulted in the death of the organism’s offspring. In effect you can say that the number of useful proteins is effectively 0 when compared to the total number of possible proteins that could be coded for in a 300 codon length piece of messenger RNA. This is only considering mRNA codon lengths of 300 but there are many more codon lengths between 10 and the longest at 43,000 – so that makes the number of potential proteins that could be coded for even larger. So mathematically you can show that the chances of a beneficial protein change occurring, and then leading to a beneficial expression of a trait that would enhance survivability is almost non-existent. Further when you look at the vast numbers of lifeforms, functions and morphologies it is clear that the life systems that abound on this planet could not have come into being by random mutations. This is because the chances of even a single mutation leading to a beneficial effect are incredibly small, yet there must have been literally trillions upon trillions of successful mutations occurring to produce all the different life forms that we see on the planet.
Another factor to consider, is that according to neo-Darwinian logic, the big bang was the start of it all 13.5 billion years ago. Although that sounds like a large number when you express it to the base 10, it is in fact very small compared to the number of permutations of 300 codons. Here’s 13,5 billion as a fully written number 13,500,000,000 – expressed as 10 to the power of…. it’s 13.5^9 but let’s be generous and say it’s 10^10. Given that there are a little under 10^7 proteins in the entire plant and animal kingdom, this would mean that to get just one beneficial/useable protein – in the whole time the universe has been in existence, we would need to have 10^390 ÷ 10^7 ÷ 10^10 = 10^373 per annum to get just one beneficial/viable protein. Further that protein would need to be expressed somewhere that was functionally useful to the organism to enhance it’s survival & occur a developmentally useful stage up to and including sexual maturity. Further, if the newly created protein sequence was recessive, the organism would then need to mate with another with the same gene to allow it to be expressed. And of course any of these changes to the DNA would have to have originally occurred in the gametes – or they would not be inheritable by future generations.
However I’m not saying that there is a god or any other particular speculation other than to rule out pure chance. But what this does mean is that something caused this incredible array of life and it would be seemingly likely that there was some sort of intelligence behind it – given the incredible elegance of the structures that we see. It is also a possibility that we are living in some kind of pre-existing matrix that has many possibilities pre-encoded into it. This is a bit like this word program I am typing on – there are an almost infinite number of possibilities that I could type here on this alleged tabula rasa – BUT – I can only type letters that have already been pre-encoded into that system as possibilities. I can’t just invent a new letter whenever I feel like it: but the possibilities are still almost infinite.
The upshot is that even if you only consider it a possibility it is likely that there may be some purpose to being here – I’m not saying that there is – but I’m saying that to rule it out is clearly nonsensical and rather short-sighted. The fact is we have been spoon-fed this idea that “it all came about after a big bang and then lots of random mutations over a long period of time which produced the life we see”. Personally I think that is a nonsensical idea and is not borne out by the facts that we have discovered so far – particularly about DNA. On the other hand I will also rule out religions because religion is clearly based on nonsense too. But that doesn’t mean to say that there is not some other meaning to life that one could (or maybe should) attempt to divine.