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

But this "intent" is the whole point that the debate turns on. Sure if there
is a Designer that authored the laws of the universe and "intends" man in
His image, then the probability goes to 1. Nothing hard about that one.

But Koonin denies this intent and Designer and therefore he has to appeal to
multiverses to get evolution jumpstarted. As was pointed out in the peer
review though, once you have to resort to multiverses at all, evolution is
superfluous because there would be a universe where all this happened even
without evolution.

The more telling point is the peer reviewer who resists Koonin's multiverse
speculation because he says he doesn't want to let a divine foot in the door
and asks what protection does he have against this divine agent? Truly when
science is crying out to be protected from truth due to preconceived
ideology then it has lost its way.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Jim Armstrong
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 12:06 AM
To: ASA
Subject: Re: [asa] Calculation of probability for life to originate on Earth
unintelligently

And I'll put my two cents worth in again on this subject, that the very
immensity of the reaction vessel that is our incomprehensively large
universe intrinsically and significantly reduces any odds that you care to
compute, especially when one factors in any intent that is "wired into" the
orderly and apparently insistently fruitful design of the universe. JimA
[Friend of ASA]

D. F. Siemens, Jr. wrote:

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
<http://www.uidaho.edu/%7Ejohnston/HOMEPA%7E1.HTM> =============
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Mon Nov 12 07:08:28 2007