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

[Oops, sorry Michael - I meant to post this]
There may also be an issue with "gradual succession" as well, because I
recall a number of posts and articles that reported that both evolution
evidence and more realistic evolutionary models tended to manifest
bursts of very rapid and significant change. One might, of course,
interpret these as either natural events, or, perhaps as evidence of
God's episodic interaction with nature to accomplish something that was
not happening in the natural course of events.

JimA [Friend of ASA]

Michael Roberts 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 <mailto:igd.strachan@gmail.com>
> To: D. F. Siemens, Jr. <mailto:dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
> Cc: johnston@uidaho.edu <mailto:johnston@uidaho.edu> ;
> asa@calvin.edu <mailto: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
>

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Received on Mon Nov 12 09:54:31 2007