Definitions (Evolution)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Thursday, April 03, 2008, 13:32 (6076 days ago) @ dhw

I would just like to take up dhw again on his most annoying use of the term "chance". - dhw: abiogenesis: the theory that non-living material can by chance assemble itself into living material capable of self-replication, heredity, variation and adaptation. - dhw: chance: relating to any event that has no apparent cause, purpose or design. - Suppose a golfer mishits his ball. It flies over the fence and hits a man walking along the cliff path. The walker misses his step and falls over the cliff to the beach below. In this scenario, what are the chance events? The trajectory of the ball, once hit, and the fall of the man off the cliff are governed by the laws of gravity, although other factors such as gusts of wind, and undergrowth on the cliff obstructing the fall may come into account. - It seems that dhw would describe this whole series of events as "chance", even though parts of it have an inevitablity governed by laws of nature. - No one that I've ever heard of maintains that the first self-replicating molecules arose as the result of a "hurricane in a junkyard" type of event (which is what the "by chance" phrase brings to mind). The theories that I have seen require the coming together of the appropriate chemical components in a suitable environment, this requires a certain amount of chance, but then, once all the necessary factors are in position the laws of chemical reaction take over and it may be that the process thereafter is as inevitable as falling off a cliff. - dhw's use of the phrases: Formerly known as "spontaneous generation" and A cornerstone of atheism. are just silly jibes.