An intresting article comparing the two. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ervin-laszlo/evolution-presupposes-des_b_537507.html
The odds are just too long to have life by chance.
Eveloution presupposes design
by Snotrag 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
-
ForbiddenFruit
Evolution does not happen by chance, the very definition of Natural Selection means there is no "randomness" involved. Evolution has nothing to do with the Big Bang either. Evolution states what happens to life once it is here, how it got here is another field of science...
It's spelt "evolution" btw.
-
bohm
I work on a masters in mathematical modelling, specifically i work with information theory and (bayesian) statistics.
The article is crap. Fred Hoyles calculation is wrong; it is impossible to use statistics in the way he does and his result has abselutely no connection with reality. Fred Hoyle would flunk any statistics course with bullshit like that simple because he could prove that ANY remotely complicated structure was the result of design.
The calculation is repeated again and again because it has an air of authority, but i have never, ever seen anyone be able to defend it.
If you want to refute me, you might start by providing details of the calculation along with what propebalistic framework it is calculated within (bayesian, orthodox statistics, etc), the details should include the hypothesis space (if we are dealing with orthodox statistics) or the prior distributions (if we are in the bayesian framework).
If you dont know what those things mean, well, suppose i posted articles that insisted the bible said jesus was resurrected 4 times, the last time as Vladimir Putin due to some argument i had heard existed, but never bothered to understand, just as i had never bothered to actually read the bible. You would properly not be very impressed by my scholarship...
Sorry if i come of sounding harsh, but if i had a dollar for every time i had seen a person with good intentions repeat this nugget of crap like it is even remotely connected with reality...
-
sir82
In m experience, well over 99% of people who disagree with evolution don't understand it, and well over 90% not only don't understand it, but think they do.
-
wobble
Dear Bohm,
If I come on here talking crap. I appreciate being put straight by someone who knows what they are talking about, you are not harsh, just to the point, and your comments are educational and valuable to many of us here.
Dear sir82,
Are those bayesian statistics? They sound about right to me whatever.
Evolution only pre-supposes that the life-forms not suited to their environment will become extinct.
Intelligent Design leaves us with more awkward questions than it purports to answer, how Evolution works is well established, why it got started is not,but that is for philosophers, not scientists, although science is constantly pushing the question further back, certainly it is a question for "before" our space-time continuum existed.
Wobble
-
BurnTheShips
The odds are just too long to have life by chance.
Life doesn't develop by chance, any more than a planted seed will sprout by chance. Given the right conditions, what we call "life" will always develop. We have a hard time comprehending this because we distinguish between "life" and "non-life." We call them different. The distinction is our own, and it is a difference of degree, not of kind. There is no basic difference between living matter and lifeless matter other than organization. What we call "life" arose out of the evolution of matter, the early stages of which have already been demonstrated in laboratories.
BTS
-
darkl1ght3r
You can't cite the argument from "long odds" after the fact. That's cheating. It's like shooting an arrow and then painting a bullseye around where it struck.
For example, what are the odds that all of your previous ancestors would happen to mate with all of your correct female ancestors, all at exactly the right time (since a different sperm or egg would have produced a different person), all through 100's of generations, all the way down to... you? Since those odds are so astronomical, your existence must have been specifically planned and designed, and the universe must be intended solely for you.
Silly isn't it?
The argument presupposes that rare events don't happen unless they are designed with intent. But of course, we know exceedingly rare events do happen all the time. Look at it this way... what are the odds that after thoroughly shuffling a deck of cards you deal out 4 aces from the top? Without getting in to the specific numbers, they're exactly the same as dealing out any other set of four cards. We think such an occurence is amazing because we imbue meaning into 4 aces. Yet, nature has no "prefrence" between a set of 4 aces, or a set of 8 of spades, 2 of clubs, king of clubs, and a 6 of diamonds. Both are equally "rare" so, given enough trial runs, we will end up with 4 aces off the top. Eventually.
I forget where I heard the saying but, "The only thing necessary to turn an improbability into an inevitability is time."
-
hooberus
Look at it this way... what are the odds that after thoroughly shuffling a deck of cards you deal out 4 aces from the top? Without getting in to the specific numbers, they're exactly the same as dealing out any other set of four cards. We think such an occurence is amazing because we imbue meaning into 4 aces. Yet, nature has no "prefrence" between a set of 4 aces, or a set of 8 of spades, 2 of clubs, king of clubs, and a 6 of diamonds. Both are equally "rare" so, given enough trial runs, we will end up with 4 aces off the top. Eventually.
However, most deals will still simply be random patterns of cards, and non-random patterns like 4 Aces, or a sequence like Jack, Queen, King, and Ace are vastly fewer in number compared to all the possible random combinations. And if a dealer dealt enough of them in a row, or even one that is lengthy enough by itself, then we would interpret this a sign of intelligent design, (similar to how SETI looks for such non-random patterns in radio-signals, to discern design).
I forget where I heard the saying but, "The only thing necessary to turn an improbability into an inevitability is time."
It needs to be kept in mind that as the improbability increases the time required also increases- and it will rapidly increase to exceed even vast hypothetical time periods available. Walter ReMine in his book The Biotic Message talks about how leading evolutionists (in response to probability arguments) often uuse the example of "flipping a hundred heads in a row", as something that given time will eventally happen. ReMine shows that given even assuming the alleged evolutionary age of the earth, and generous assumptions on the number of trials available for such attempts, that such a non-random sequence will simply not occurr within even the lengthy hypothetical time frame.
-
bohm
hooberus: "It needs to be kept in mind that as the improbability increases the time required also increases- and it will rapidly increase to exceed even vast hypothetical time periods available. Walter ReMine in his book The Biotic Message talks about how leading evolutionists (in response to probability arguments) often uuse the example of "flipping a hundred heads in a row", as something that given time will eventally happen. ReMine shows that given even assuming the alleged evolutionary age of the earth, and generous assumptions on the number of trials available for such attempts, that such a non-random sequence will simply not occurr within even the lengthy hypothetical time frame."
Look, it may be that ReMine may have found some scientists who (apparently) does not understand the multinomial distribution (which is highschool stuff!). I am somewhat sceptical of that claim, but lets leave it there - we can both agree that we do not want to get our knowledge about statistics from someone who does not understand the most fundamental propability distributions!
The key observation here is (as i wrote) that we do not know the propability space that these events lie in !!!
Its amazing we can have this discussion in 2010. It even has a name - Fred Hoyels Fallacy - that an argument has a logical fallacy named after it should be a damn good indication that it sucks.
