The issue of chance... (Evolution)

by Matt S. , Monday, June 01, 2009, 17:18 (5652 days ago) @ David Turell

Mr. Turell,
I think that what you say probability-wise isn't true when you consider that in the primordial soup, for arguably a billion years several hundred trillion molecules were washing around, in ambient conditions suitable for biological reactions. - Think of it like a coin toss. What's the probability that 10 coin tosses on a single coin creates a sequence of ten heads? 1 in 2^10. - This is how it appears to me that you (and dhw) are reasoning. This reasoning is based on a flawed assumption: That a single event which has a rare probability of happening applies to the entire system under investigation. You assume only one attempt! - Let me ask you then, what is the probability of gaining that same sequence if you flip the coin 2^100 times? The probability of that is much higher, in fact its 100%. If you bought a lottery ticket for every possible combination of numbers you WOULD win. - And in the problem of abiogenesis, we have a finite number of elements with a nearly unlimited amount of time and energy... it's not chance, its inevitability. - Though abiogenesis is a more suitable problem for stochastic probability, discrete probability can provide a bit of insight (and is easier to understand.) The 'faith of the atheist' as stated here by dhw is strictly speaking--not faith, though atheists have their fair share of faith when the make certain claims (such as 'god does not exist.') - There are few things as damning as numerical evidence. We can't know for sure if a creator exists or not, but statistically speaking we can rule out the need for a supernatural origin to life itself, in the respect that it isn't necessary to invoke it to explain how we got here. There might be other explanations but the subjectivity involved does not lend itself to conversation. - Looking at the ratio of molecules to the amount of time on the clock (and I'm being conservative on the 1Bn year statement) it is fully plausible that we came about by chance, as you consider that every nanosecond in solution physical reconfiguration takes place, you would have an uncountable number of trials before you finally got a sequence that was life. So in my perspective, life is/was inevitable here on this earth. That we think we're special for it, is what strikes me as laughable, but that's outside the scope of discussion.