Re: [asa] Calculation of probability for life to originate on Earth unintelligently

I love these computations based on ignorance. It wasn't that long ago
that the dogma was that organic compounds could only be produced by
living creatures. Now we know that amino acids are common in the
universe. More recently the notion of jumping genes was generally
rejected. But a Nobel was granted for the discovery. I recall the dogma
that a gene could only produce one protein--of course with introns
excised. Now we have to recognize that the genetic system is much more
flexible. I also recall that similar compounds provide light sensitivity
from protists to all higher branches of life. What was once certain has
been found to be wrong. Additionally, there is the view that the unusual
cannot happen. Yet every time a foursome sets out to play bridge, they
arrive at something that has 1 chance in
80,658,175,170,943,878.571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,
              824,000,000,000,000.
Dave (ASA)

On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:34:55 -0800 "Lawrence Johnston"
<johnston@uidaho.edu> writes:
> Fellow ASA'ers:
>
> To my great joy and surprise, someone has made a calculation of the
> probability for the origin of life on earth by natural process.
>
> http://www.biology-direct.com/content/2/1/15
>
> Eugene Koonin has made a calculation of this, and published it!
>
> His result is that the probability for this to happen on any one of
> the
> ~10^(21) earthlike planets in the Universe, during the life of the
> universe, is (gasp):
>
> Probability = 10^(-1018)
>
> The OOL scenario that he bases his calculation on, is the RNA FIRST
>
> scenario, probably the most popular scenario proposed.
>
> He anticipates the outrage this will cause, amongst the many
> academics
> whose worldview is Naturalism, so he hides behind the usual
> multi-universe
> theory, in which any improbable process can happen any number of
> times.
> (aren't we lucky to be in one of those fortunate universes?)
>
> He prepares his hiding place in the early part of the paper, and
> saves the
> bad news of the calculation for an appendix at the end. Fortunately
> I
> guess he must have a secure job at the NIH (National Institute of
> Health).
>
> He also pronounces the usual anathema against ID.
>
> Lawrence Johnston
>
> "Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not"
>
> A. Einstein
> ==========================================================
> Lawrence H. Johnston home: 917 E. 8th st.
> professor of physics, emeritus Moscow, Id 83843
> University of Idaho (208) 882-2765
> Fellow of the American Physical Society
> http://www.uidaho.edu/~johnston/HOMEPA~1.HTM =============
>
>
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sun Nov 11 23:37:14 2007