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

David's argument is crass for reasons I've explained 1001 times on this list
but no-one is prepared to listen. I'm not saying that Koonin's probability
argument is convincing, but just that David's dismissal of it is a
completely silly argument. Here's attempt no 1002 (sigh!) Try and listen
and digest this time, please.

The reason is quite simple - for a low-probability argument to have any
validity, you have to specify the target before the event, not after it. To
deal any arbitrary bridge hand and say it has probability is such and such
after the event means absolutely nothing at all. It is as if you presented
a darts player with a blank wall 20 feet wide by 20 feet high, and then drew
a bullseye-sized circle around wherever the dart landed. The fact that the
probability of the dart being in the circle is small means nothing at all
because you specified the target after the event. But on the other hand if
you made the darts player throw a dart at a real dart board, told them to
aim for the bullseye, and they hit it first time, you'd be reasonably
justified in suspecting that they were a pretty skilled darts player. The
difference being that the target is specified before the event.

Or in brigde-hand parlance, suppose I shuffled a deck of cards, and dealt
out a bridge hand & wrote it down in a sealed envelope. Then I got someone
else to shuffle a second pack, deal the cards, and then open the envelope.
If the cards on the table matched what I'd written down on the envelope,
they'd have good reason to be amazed. If they said "I'm not amazed because
that combination is just as (un)likely as any other" then I for one would be
amazed that anyone could be that stupid.

David has expressed the concern that he wishes to keep the bretheren honest,
and I agree he should. But by the same token, we must not let our
earnestness to challenge ID lead us into making foolish and ignorant
arguments. Dembski would eat David's argument for breakfast, and it would
be well justified.

Just as much as I'm concerned that Christians shouldn't make stupid
arguments about radioactive dating and the age of the earth, by the same
token I'm concerned that we, on the other side shouldn't make stupid
arguments about probability that just show our ignorance of the subject.
There IS a principled way to challenge the ID camp's ideas about "complex
specified information" - Indeed I have recently constructed a computer
simulation that shows complex specified information being generated out of
nothing, with absolutely no prior input of information. If I can get it
published, it will be a serious challenge to the notion that CSI is a
reliable indicator of design. However, to make silly statements about the
probability of a bridge hand is to demonstrate that you don't even
understand the concept you're trying to debunk.

By the way, Michael, you say you remain agnostic. Did you actually read and
assess Koonin's paper?

Iain

On Nov 12, 2007 11:31 AM, Michael Roberts <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>
wrote:

> 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 <igd.strachan@gmail.com>
> *To:* D. F. Siemens, Jr. <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
> *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
>
>

-- 
-----------
After the game, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.
- Italian Proverb
-----------
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.