Tipler's extreme silliness

From: Damien Broderick (thespike@satx.rr.com)
Date: Thu Jan 05 2006 - 20:35:14 MST


At 03:13 AM 1/6/2006 +0000, Mitchell wrote:

>Robin Lee Powell said
>
>>Hoooooooooooly shit.

Highly appropriate; see below.

>>Actually, he's already described how - "coherent sphaleron transitions" -
>>in a paper where he's trying to provide a physical mechanism for Biblical
>>miracles of materialization: http://home.worldonline.nl/~sttdc/tipler.htm

This extract is a truly distressing self-parody:

<I propose that Jesus was a special type of XX male ([44]-[49]).
Approximately one out of every 20,000 males is an XX male. Such males are
normal in behavior and intelligence, but have smaller teeth, shorter
statue, and smaller testis than normal males. They are usually identified
as XX males because they cannot have children, and ask doctors to cure the
infertility. Normal males are XY, but there are only 28 genes on the Y
chromosome, as opposed to thousands on the X chromosome. Of these 28 genes,
15 are unique to the Y chromosome, and 13 have counterparts on the X
chromosome [41]. The gene with counterparts on both the X and the Y
chromosomes are called "homologous genes." An XX male results when a single
key gene for maleness on the Y chromosome (the SRY gene) is inserted into
an X chromosome. I propose that ALL (or at least many) of the Y chromosome
genes were inserted into one of Mary's X chromosomes, and that in Mary, one
of the standard mechanisms used to turn off genes were active on these
inserted Y genes. (There is an RNA process that can turn off an entire X
chromosome. This is the most elegant turn-off mechanism.) Jesus would then
result when one of Mary's eggs cells started to divide before it became
haploid and with the Y-genes activated. (And of course with the extra X
genes deactivated.) If a sample of Jesus' blood and/or flesh could be
obtained, my proposal could easily be tested by carrying out two distinct
DNA tests for sex: (1) test for the Y genes and (2) test for two alleles
(different gene forms) of X chromosome genes. In other words, a male born
of a virgin would have two X chromosome genes for each of its counterpart Y
gene. Normal males would have only one X chromosome gene for each of its Y
counterpart gene. This pairing would apply to each of the 13 genes on the Y
chromosome that has an X counterpart.

Such a Virgin Birth would be improbable. If the measured probability that a
single Y gene is inserted into an X chromosome is 1 in 20,000, then the
probability that all Y genes are inserted into an X chromosome is
(1/20,000) raised to 28 power, the power corresponding to the number of Y
genes. (Assuming that the insertion of each Y gene has equal probability,
and these insertions are independent.) There have been only about 100
billion humans born since behaviorally modern Homo sapiens evolved between
55,000 and 80,000 years ago ([74], p. 704). The number of humans that have
ever lived is roughly computed as follows. In the first 60,000 years of
modern human existence, there were roughly 10 million humans living world
wide, with complete replacement every generation, roughly every 30 years.
With 2,000 generations in 60,000 years, this means 20 billion people lived
in this period. Over the next 6,000 years, humans had agriculture, which
allowed the support of a population of roughly 300 million. With 200
generations in 6,000 years, this means that 30 billion people lived in this
period. Finally we come to the modern period, essentially the period of the
people now living. There are now 6 billion people in the world. Adding all
these numbers gives about 60 billion people as the total number of people
who have ever lived.

Thus, the virgin birth of such an XX male would be unique in human history
even if there were only 2 such Y genes inserted into an X chromosome. (I
assume an upper bound to the rate of virgin birth is 1/300. Then the
probability of a virgin birth of a male with 2 Y genes is
1/(300)(20,000)(20,000) = 1/120 billion.) But as in the case of the
Resurrection, if such an event HAD to occur for the universe to evolve into
the Omega Point, then the Virgin Birth probability would become one; i.e.,
certain to occur. In other words, it would be a miracle! >



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