Re: what are the odds?

In message <6b0f6837-48ea-44c5-ba8c-c20598f7fa4d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, All-seeing-I <apc57@xxxxxxxxx> writes
On Nov 28, 2:17 am, Sapient Fridge <use_reply_addr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
In message
<5cb270cb-c069-4f86-b6b8-57a32c1e8...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
All-Seeing-I <allseei...@xxxxxxx> writes





>On Nov 27, 10:47 pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> bpuharic <w...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >On Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:41:54 -0800 (PST), All-Seeing-I
>> ><allseei...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >>Evolution is on a roll!!

>> >>It called the right numbers on a pair of dice for ten billion
>> >>consecutive throws!!!!!!!!!!!

>> >creationism didn't even know dice existed

>> I love it when the creationist guys start in with probabilities.

>> My favorite discussion-ending thing is to ask the guy to pick up
>> a deck of cards and carefully shuffle it.

>> Then lay it out face up one card after the other until the entire
>> deck is exposed.

>> What, I ask, are the odds that YOU, of all people, would get that
>> order?  The odds are so impossibly small, about 1 in 8x10^{67),
>> that it is just beyond belief that you could have dealt out that
>> hand.

>> They don't ever get it and go away because they think I'm mad.

>> That's the problem with after-the-fact probabilities.  The guy
>> dealt a deck, one of the 8x10^{67) arrangements, all equally
>> unlikely.

>> Given that they are all equally unlikely, AND that he did, in
>> fact, deal out out the deck ONE of those 8x10^{67) HAD TO COME
>> UP.

>> So no matter what the odds of getting the 'right' throw for 10
>> billion consecutive throws (a number so amazingly smaller than
>> the number of arrangements of a deck of cards) -- no matter
>> what those odds, we START with the knowlege that that is exactly
>> what happened.

>> Question for the class:  what are the odds against my having
>> had a banana with my breakfast this morning?

>> --
>>    --- Paul J. Gans

>Actually it is you that does not "get it". They are probably walking
>away in utter amazement that an educated person cannot understand.

>Let's suppose I lay out the cards exactly as you have explained. Then
>make note of the order of the cards that I laid out.

>Now, ask 1 billion additional people to do the same. But all 1 billion
>people have to get the same order that I got.

>Why? Because the 1 billion sequences represent all of the small
>changes over time that is supose to add up to a population of fish
>diverging into a population of humans. Every sequence has to be just
>right each time and for millions of years.

I think you missed the point.  The chances of any *particular* deck
being laid our are astronomically low, but it's certain that a deck will
be laid out.

Your analogy would only be true if evolution were *aiming* at producing
humans from fish.  There is absolutely nothing inevitable about humans
and evolution has no aim so although the odds us being here are
incredibly low the chances of *something* being alive today are very
high.

Sure, evolution was not "aiming" to make a population of fish into a
population of men. But that is indeed the claim of what happened.
Therefore you now have a target result to aim at with that claim.

Targets that are declared only *after* they have been hit are useless for statistical analysis. The usual analogy is that of firing bullets at the side of a barn then drawing targets around the bullet holes.

In order to get to the "claimed" target result you need to show all of
the sequences from then to now. The mathematical probability of small
changes remaining consistent for millions of years to result in the
claimed outcome of fish to man is astronomical.

Nope, the probability that all the necessary mutations took place is exactly 1 *after* they have happened, no matter how low their probability was before the event.

Just the same as when I look back a random deck of cards after they have been dealt, each card had low probability *before* it has been dealt but a probability of 1 *after* it has been dealt.

IOW the cards would have to be laid out the in same manor for millions
of years and for the amount of sequences (X) needed to produce the
"claimed" outcome.

Only if there was a target which was defined *before* the mutations happened. Since evolution was not aiming to produce humans your reasoning and calculations are wrong.
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