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

Like David I am not convinced of probability arguments. I have heard them for years. I don't find David's response crass but see it as a warning.

What we need to do is to start where we are and that is a 13by universe etc with a gradual succession of life on earth over the lat 4by years. How can we decide what the probability is if we don't know all the details. It is then simply quasimaths.

I remain agnostic

Michael
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Iain Strachan
  To: D. F. Siemens, Jr.
  Cc: johnston@uidaho.edu ; asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 8:30 AM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Calculation of probability for life to originate on Earth unintelligently

  D.F. Siemens wrote:
    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 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.

  This is a typically crass argument that gets tediously trotted out again and again on this list as though it proves something. In Koonin's terms it has to be one highly specific bridge hand that gets dealt. Sure, any bridge hand has the same probability, but I guarantee that if you sat down at a bridge table and dealt the cards and you all got 13 of the same suit each, that you'd suspect someone had messed with the pack. Koonin's solution (which at least has more merit than your argument) is to postulate zillions of bridge hands being dealt in parallel universes.

  Iain

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Mon Nov 12 06:33:57 2007