Re: Rant on "Some thoughts abouth thinking"

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Richard Dobson <richarddobson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Jon Harris wrote:
> >
> >>It's true that the molecules required for human life (or any life) are quite
> >>complicated. However they are still all derived from very simple atomic
> >>building blocks, and can be assembled in pieces over time.
> >
> > Yes, if you get all the exact right pieces together in one place at one time.
> > One scientist estimated that the probability of this happening randomly was
> > 10^-125!

But there's probably been 10^125+ opportunities for any
particular event to occur so does that make the probability
of any of them greater than 1?

> Is that the probability of it happening on just this planet, or anywhere in the
> Unvierse? If the latter, thats a probability applied to a pretty large space,
> over a pretty large timescale, which to my mind makes the chance of it happening
> once, somewhere, pretty high, and the chance of it happening independently in at
> least two places still high. Panspermia, etc. What I have never been clear
> about is whether the Creationists are considering this planet alone, or "in
> principle" the whole Universe (i.e would they be freaked out by discovery of
> life elsewhere?). Currently we only have evidence from this planet (whether for
> evolution or God), which does not discount the possibility of evidence elsewhere
> which we simply haven't found yet. In terms of the Universe (well, this Universe
> anyway), might even this whole planet maybe represent a sample set too small to
> derive reliable preditions?

Ah, the hazards of extrapolation from a single data
point! You can use your data to "prove" anything you
want but you have a very high probability of being
totally wrong.
.

Relevant Pages

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