David, I have a submission here of a small essay I have written to counter Ted's claim that the number of mutations required by evolution is "Essentially Infinite". I thought it might make a useful addition to The Ted Page, so I'm sending it to you. Hope you like it!

ESSENTIALLY INFINITE

By now, we have all heard Ted Holden use that favorite phrase of his, "Essentially Infinite", to describe the number of changes that are required to get from a primitive, single-celled lifeform to a modern, complex lifeform like a human being.

What Ted doesn't seem to realize, however, is that "Essentially Infinite" is a blatant contradiction in terms. Why? Consider what "Infinity" is; it's not number, it's a concept. You can pick any arbitrarily large number, but no matter how large it is, there will always be an endless quantity of numbers larger than it. Nothing can be "Essentially Infinite", because no matter how far you get from 0, you are still the same distance from Infinity -- an infinite distance.

Now, of course, we all know that Ted means this not as an ironclad mathematical concept, but as a more subjective one. That is, the number of mutations necessary seems "Essentially Infinite" compared to our perspective. So, let's look at it that way. Consider the following analogy:

In my physics class, we are currently learning about the concept of electric charge. And, in all of our homework problems, we treat the earth as an endless pool of negative charge. In fact, my professor himself even used the phrase "Essentially Infinite" to describe the amount of negative charge contained in the earth. What this means, of course, is that, on the human scale, the earth can, for all practical purposes, be treated as an infinite pool of negative charge. Compared to, say, a 1-meter charged sphere, the earth's supply of electrons seems inexhaustible. You could keep pulling them out by positively charging the sphere and grounding it as fast as possible for the rest of your life, and you'd still not even put a dent in the earth's supply of electrons. (Of course, the earth is not a static source of electrons. It is constantly receiving an influx of all sorts of charged particles from the sun and elsewhere, but even if it weren't, my statement would still stand true.) So, we can see that, compared to our 1-meter charged sphere, the earth's supply of negative charge is "Essentially Infinite".

However, compared to, say, Jupiter, the earth's pool of negative charge suddenly seems not just finite, but decidedly puny. And this is where the concept of SCALE comes into the picture. Whether a quantity can be treated as "Essentially Infinite" depends entirely on the scale which it is contrasted against. And, as Aaro Sami so cleverly pointed out, by Ted's definition, the length of time postulated by evolutionary theory is as "Essentially Infinite" as the number of mutations which are postulated to have taken place within that time. And this is where Ted's argument unravels. Those "Essentially Infinite" numbers of mutations are suddenly seen to be not only finite, but really rather modest.

So, as you can see, when someone claims that the number of mutations required by evolutionary theory is "Essentially Infinite", that person is being, essentially, dishonest.

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|                        Russell Stewart                      |
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| Albuquerque, New Mexico       |            diamond@rt66.com |
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                        In myself I trust.
                 What has God done for me lately?