Probability

SLNT_FIR

SLNT_FIR

New Member
Hey guys, my friend said that there was always a slight chance that life on earth evolved BY CHANCE. He said "Eventually over trillions and billions of years, something would happen."
What is the probability of this happening? *psst... DV? A little help?* I'm curious. You're probably most knowledgable about this stuff than the rest of us. :p
 
Theoretically there is a chance that it could, in reality, no. Even once you get the amino acids to miraculously form, there is a level of irreducible complexity that prevents the cell from functioning unless all parts come together in perfect order instantly; thus further vastly reducing the chances.
 
Mathematician John Paulos had this to say on the subject:

Rarity by itself shouldn't necessarily be evidence of anything. When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable.
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Taken from his book, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Social Consequences

Ooo...I am liking this new forum... All these bells and whistles!
 
The 13 cards were dealt from a deck of cards. And the dealer was God the Father. The chance of your make up is 1 in 600 billion, but you exist because the father deemed you to exist. You don't exist because of some randoms shuffling of vaguely related items. The question John Paulos should be asking is not the probability that the 13 cards were dealt, but what is the probability that the 52 cards randomly came into existance from nothing.
 
Skewed analogy. Paulos is making the assumption that life did indeed evolve by chance, and that the extremely low chances of it happening should not be evidence against it, just as someone dealt an extremely rare hand would not conclude that it was impossible; he can see the hand itself right before him. The error in his reasoning is that Paulos cannot see the actual first cell come into existance like the person can see his hand.
 
It would be very intersting to adjust his analogy to how evolutionists structured their arguement:

1. There was nothing, it was shaken up and you got the right amount of ingredients to make the red ink, black ink and paper stock, in the perfect quantity to move to number 2,

2. Those ingredients were shaken up and you got the thirteen cards.


Instead, Johns analogy presumes the existance of the deck of cards and somebody dealing the cards.
 
The analogy has nothing to do with creationism or evolution, it merely illustrates that even the most improbable of things are still possible. In the same way, while the probability of DNA assembling by chance may be 10^40000 to 1, it is not an impossibility.
 
He may not be talking about evolution, but you are the one who brought his example into said context. Why would you bring it up if not to suggest that your position is that our existance is proof that the one chance in a million billion did occour?
 
But I'm not saying that it did occur, I'm saying that it's possible that it did occur. As opposed to impossible, which is what seems to be advocated in this thread.
 
Most scientists consider items below a threshold probability (i don't recall what it is off the top of my head) to be so improbable that it is impossible.

The case of the bridge hand: While the probability of getting the hand you were dealt may be in the magnitude of 1 in 600 billion, the probability of getting dealt 13 cards, regardless of the suits or values, is so close to 100%, that it is called a certainty, or an impossibility to not have been dealt 13 cards.

What is the probability of not getting 13 cards? It is so improbable, we classify it as impossible. And if we are dealt 12 cards, we look for reasons, did we loose a card under the table, did a card get stuck to another, did the dog eat one, did one get thrown out in the trash. Nobody actually says, well, the probability of a card vanishing for no reason what so ever is 1 in 15 trillion and since I was dealt 12 cards instead of 13, it must have have been that 1 in 15 trillion. That is such an absurbed conclusion.

And that is what believing life from non-life is. The chances of it happening are so insignificant that it is considered impossible. I'm sure the probability is somewhere near the probability of a card vanishing for no reason. Yet you don't believe that a card could vanish for no reason, do you?
 
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no, it's 1 out of:

1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 um... 125 zeroes right? And WE are not accident. 100 million years. Pppht! The prebiotic soup did not exist. So we do not know. I mean athiests or whoever it might concern. and here's an excellent analogy:


Take a cell and have a testtube with a sterile balanced salt solution. Put the cell in, and poke it so everything leaks out. Now you'll have tons more than naturalistic explantions can do. Well? Try it over and over again. The cell will not naturally come together. It doesn't work.
 
Impossible beyond a threshold of possibility? I find that pretty illogical; that goes against the very definition of 'impossible.' Could you better explain this concept to me?
 
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Sure, go to a cliff and and step over it. While it is possible that you will not fall, and one can calculate the actual probability that you won't, it is still considered impossible that it would ever happen.

Of course some evolutionists believe that if you do that enough times, over enough generations, you will eventually evolve wings so you can fly instead of fall. Of course this implies that evolution has intellegence enough to figure out that you don't want to fall and thus begin the process of evolving wings.

I on the other hand believe that I would fall to my death, thereby ensuring the genes that were interested in flying are not passed into the next generation. Thus there is no chance of evolving wings. But, some would argue that because there are birds the one in some absurbed number chance of it happening must have occoured.

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But those people would look for a missing card if they were dealt 12 instead of 13, instead of simply believing that the one chance in a some absurbed number that the card disappeared from existance for no reason actually occoured.
 
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This thread has become an argument on semantics. What the word impossible means is understood by all of us. We don't need a lesson :) I have found that most of the time when I have discussions with evolutionists, it ends up changing to some side topic to get away from the lack of evidence for macro evolution.

The probability being raised here is only a small piece of what is needed for macro evolution to be 'possible'. Not only do all of the peices have to be there in the right order at the right time, but so many environmental factors would have to be perfect that it reduces the probability even further.

It is such a low probability that most 'thinking individuals' would consider it not to have happened. The creation of this first cell is one of the smallest steps in the theory of macro evolution. The probability of getting from this first cell to man (or even a worm) makes the probability of the first cell forming look easy.

So the arguement about whether it is 'impossible' or just so improbable that it is silly to think it happened is unimportant. Many scientists and university professors are starting to 'think' about this. That is why we are seeing so many of them today saying that life just forming is so very unlikely that they are looking for other possibilities. The one I am seeing the most of in recent months is that some alien life form planted the first life on earth...lol. They don't seem to realize that this arguement doesn't help there theory at all. The 'alien life form' had to come from somewhere too :rolleyes:

ack I'm rambling :eek:
 
SilentAssassin said:
I am talkign about forming one protein. complete. Max, you may be talking about a cell right? :D
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No, I'm talking about amino acids, but I don't remember the details. Haven't done this stuff since I was 15.
 
Didasko said:
The one I am seeing the most of in recent months is that some alien life form planted the first life on earth...lol. They don't seem to realize that this arguement doesn't help there theory at all. The 'alien life form' had to come from somewhere too :rolleyes:
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Yeah, methinks that would be the intelligent designer theorists you are referring to. Not a big fan of their ideas myself..but of course, as ridiculous as it sounds, we should always consider the possibility of intelligent aliens being the source of our origin. I imagine what it would be like sometimes..for aliens to visit out planet and say "Yeah, we put you here." Whoo..wouldn't that mess things up..
 
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