Re: And is _this_ true?


"Herman Rubin" <hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:g8rod0$2ga4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <2008Aug24.120710@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <moshes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
DoD <danskisanjar@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
mos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
hru...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Herman Rubin) writes:
Micha Berger <mi...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Steve Goldfarb <s...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

1- It IS a huge long shot. This is what is driving ideas like the
multiverse. (Which I argue is a kind of theology.) The fact that
our physics is one that supports a chemistry is a long shot that
scientists are grappling with. Never mind biology.

Different people have different ideas of what constitutes a "long
shot."

I gave you my math. One in billions for one enzyme, multiplied by
some
unknown number for the evolution of something interesting. It's a
long
shot, still comparable to R' Aqiva's example of someone throwing ink
on a piece of paper and the splotch just happened to be a beautifully
calligraphied poem.

I gave you my math, based on your figures. Also, I pointed
out what may be wrong with them. Asimov had an article,
_The unblind workings of chance_, on this.

Possible, but feww people would go with that theory. They would
assume
an artist.

From my observations, no. An artist would not have designed
us as poorly as we are structured.

ROTFLOLWTIME. Herman you are a statistician not a doctor. And not a
pathologist. Have you any idea of the _intricate_ internal workings
of the human body? How the two cells at conception turn into a
functioning person which can itself reproduce? How the digestive
system works or how the pulminary system works or how the blood
supply system works or how the respiritory system works or the
reproduction system works or the... or the...?

I can't speak for Herman, but what I gathered from Herman's comment,
is that humans wouldn't have deficiancies like we do.. e.g. sickle
cell, tay sachs, or that condition where cartilage is developed
instead of bones... ::::

Well, he said "designed" and "structured" so Iresponded to that. Do
you think what man designs and implements has no "glitches"?

But God is perfect.

Quite so. Human engineers could have done a better
job of designing a structure like the human spinal column,
whose engineering failings, I am sure, are well known to many of
the readers here. We also have organs like the appendix,
which while perhaps performing useful functions in
other species, do not do so in the case of man.
In the case of man, the chief and only function
of the appendix seems to be that of it getting
infected on occasion, necessitating its surgical
removal.

The manifest imperfections
of the human body are suggestive that if it was
designed at all, its designer would have
been a being that was of limited intelligence
and/or power (not a being that is omnipotent,
omniscient and omnibenevolent),
or more likely, it was never designed at all,
but was the result of natural processes
which operate without any intelligence
(i.e. evolution by natural selection).

Jim F.


shudders on that one::::

Me too.

--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558


.

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