What Do You Think There Is More Proof Of?

daystar

Dozy, those are the same old arguments we've all heard again and again and they just don't go very far in proving much. Got anything new?
kid-A
Sorry god people, the "probability" argument holds no water whatsoever. Creationists (and the Watchtower) make the dubious claim that the odds of even a simple protein molecule forming by chance are 1 in 10 113
Why is this wrong? I will let a molecular biologist explain: Given how little is known of the first abiogenesis event, it's pointless to even think about calculating the bability of that event. In addition, Creationist calculations of this probability are built around a number of dubious assumptions which would render the exercise meaningless even if there were a point to it (which there isn't).
1. To understand what is happening here, you should use population sizes, not probabilities. Here is a simplified model of the evolutionary history of a protein:
2. Another protein exists in a lot of life forms (say, 10 9 bacteria).
3. Positive mutation (which increases fitness) occurs in a small subset of the population (say, one in 10 6 individuals). That is, about 1000 bacteria. With such a large population size, the probability of the mutation happening in at least one bacterium is about 1.
4. By natural selection, the bacteria with the new protein outreproduce the ones with the old protein. After a few hundred generations, the population size of the new mutation is multiplied by 10 6 , giving 10 9 again.
5. Go to Step 1. Repeat until you arrive by the current protein.
So the population size at the end of the process is computed by multiplying lots of very small numbers (the probabilities of each mutation) and lots of very big numbers (the factors by which natural selection enhances the population). This way the population size doesn't change much. Creationists multiply the small numbers and ignore the big ones, in order to arrive at the conclusion they desire.
The odds of winning the lottery are also incredibly small, yet every week somebody wins. If you increase the number of trials by having millions of people playing it and by repeating the process on a weekly basis, it will be quite surprising if no one ever wins the lottery. Similary (as noted above), taking into account the huge size of the universe as well as the huge age, it would be even more surprising if the universe were completely devoid of life period. Of course, given that the numbers involved in creationist computations are much larger than the number of atoms in the visible universe, this response wouldn't be enough to refute the claim if the universe is not larger than the visible part. However, current observational data are best explained by an infinite universe, and in this case everything, even if very unlikely in an limited volume of space, must happen somewhere. It was shown by cosmologists, that even in a universe which is not infinite, the fact that according to quantum theory only a limited number of states are possible in the visible part of the universe, the probabilities that all possible variations of the visible universe appear somewhere else in the whole universe are becoming close to one if the whole space exceeds a certain amount of volume. In this case the probability that any possible event, no matter how unikely it appears for us in our visible universe, to really happen somwhere in the universe is also becoming close to one.
If life never formed anywhere in the universe, there would be no intelligent life to witness it, and thus no "remembering" that it had happened. If the odds that a single person is born are one in one million per day, they will not remember the several hundred thousand days leading up to their "spontaneous birth", making it seem as if it had just "randomly happened."
Frequently, such calculations compute the number of possibilities of assembling a particular protein or nucleic acid sequence from chance alone. They assume that the building blocks (amino acids or nitrogenous bases) are already present and make the sequence relatively small (to give the appearance of placing a conservative upper limit on the probability of life forming). The calculations are then found to be incredibly high, because the event they're searching for depends on multiple concurrent events. The most important trick in most such calculations, however, is that they assume only one viable sequence is possible. That is, only one could possibly result in the existence of some form of what we might call "life". Absent this assumption, we find that they are in fact calculating only the size of the space of possibilities. They don't worry about the size of the space of favorable possibilities (much harder to figure out, in this case), and simply set it equal to 1 a priori. An analogous case would be calculating the probability of picking a black marble out of a bag by simply counting the number of marbles in the bag without regard to color, and dividing one by this number. Instead, one should find how many are black, and divide that number by the total number. Analogously, in this case the arguer tends to calculate the number of possible arrangements of a given length without regard to how many are favorable for the creation of life.
According to the logic of this claim, no one should win the lottery either. Yet, people do, indeed win the lottery.

Fallacies contained in this claim:

Straw man: computation is based on an absurd model not used by biologists
Exclusion: natural selection is not taken into account
Texan sharpshooter: pick one random event, compute its probability a posteriori.

slacker911

Dozy,

The authors are banking on two things with that book. The first is that the numbers are so huge that it is just going to be too initimidating to dispute, and that their readers are not going to have the credentials, education, and capacity to logically combat the figures and information that they are spitting out, and so you swallow it.

First things first, you mention the evolution of the universe. How does that relate to God? And particularly, how does that relate to biological evolution which is where religion and science have unfortunately and inappropriately found themselves at a crossroads? If you understood evolution at all you would recognize that that could just as easily be the method that God used to create, and he just didnt specifically create all the atrocities we see through the universe, particularly on Earth. So agreeing or disagreeing with evolution does not really back your argument one way or another.

And also, the numbers that you just regurgitated, they are missing two important variables. First, take the one billion years and increase it to ten. And then take the mass of all the carbon on all the planets approximately 1/3 to 5 times the size of the Earth, that are in the universe, and factor that into your equations. The reason I say that is this. Abiogenisis, which is what you are talking about, doesnt need to happen on each planet specifically. It only needed to happen once in the universe, which as I am sure you can understand, severly alters your test environment and subsequent results. In fact, using the mathematics that you are using, basic and non influenced abiogenesis becomes almost a certainty.

Do you cook? Have you ever heard of cross contamination? Then certainly you have experienced it and probably taken steps to combat it. Here's a thought for you. Mars might be a lifeless rock right now, but will it be after we go there? How about after we leave there? What about the anaerobic bacteria that thrive in an environment that lacks oxygen, and unfortunately almost completely covers everything we touch? There will certainly be bacteria on the surfaces of everything that we touch out there, because we will bring them with us, so when we leave them behind we will effectively be introducing life to that world if it does not already exist there. Would that make us their God? Now mathematically, especially when you consider the age of our sun right now, it is highly unlikely that anything special will ever happen to that bacteria which we will, without doubt, introduce to that planet when we go there, which we eventually will. But can you say that for the rest of the universe? Can you say that for our own Earth 3.5 billion years ago, when Earth was only a billion years old, but the rest of our universe was ten billion years old, and many stars had already burnt out and died?

Logically that might be a stretch and it could be a completely foreign thought for many, but for me it is far more realistic then believing that we were specially created by God and then he let that creation, which he put some much time and effort into, go absolutely crazy and commit all the atrocities against itself and the co-created.

Just a thought...

funkyderek

Imagine, if you will, that all possible universes exist somewhere in the multiverse. The majority of these will be utterly dull, lifeless places but we don't have to worry about these as we definitely don't live in one of them.

Of the rest, some will have been created by immensely powerful supernatural beings, in some, life will have evolved and in some, an abundance of life will have just popped into existence on a busy Wednesday afternoon.

We don't know how easy it is for life to form given that we only have one example but it seems more likely that it would evolve than just suddenly appear by chance, so it's very improbable that we live in the kind of universe where that happened.

I also think it's very unlikely that a supernatural being can just pop into existence, or for that matter, exist since the beginning of time, but in the interests of fairness I'm going to set that aside for now.

Now, some of the universes that have gods in them will leave their inhabitants in no doubt. God (from now on, I'm going to use the singular) would be an active part of their lives, telling people every morning with his big booming voice, what he wanted them to do that day, smiting the wicked, blessing the righteous, that sort of thing. Saying you didn't believe in God would be like saying you didn't believe in the sun. Now, that's not the kind of universe we live in. God just isn't an in-your-face kind of guy in our universe.

Many of the God-containing universes would have no laws of physics. We wouldn't need them. God could make the sun come up (if he bothered with a sun). We wouldn't need to be made of bones and blood and such, we could just exist as spiritual beings or have any conceivable - or inconceivable - physical form. Again, that's not the sort of universe we live in. There are very limited conditions in which we can survive, and we are clearly the products of natural processes.

Assuming God is a good guy, most of the universes in which he had a hand would be full of blissfully happy inhabitants. God, being all-powerful would be successful in the vast majority of universes. Not in ours, though.

The universes with no god would, on the other hand, look a lot like ours. Existence would be based on physical laws, the universe wouldn't care if we were happy or not, and some people would believe in God, while others would not. Those who believed in God would likely invent elaborate stories to explain why we don't live in one of the more obvious godly universes.

We can never say for certain that there is no god, but we live in exactly the kind of universe we would expect to see if there were none. The vast majority of universes that contained a god would look very different to ours.

Of course, this doesn't fully cover the existence of evil, shy or apathetic gods but such a "god" would hardly be worthy of the title.

startingover

SNG, Kid-A, Funky, Slacker

Thanks for your posts, I for one really enjoy reading things that make me think outside the "god" box.

slacker911

Thank you for the compliment! You know, I noticed one thing. Once I started thinking outside that box, I never closed my mind back into it!

FunkyDerek, that was a thought provoking post, which I, in my short time here, have come to expect from you. A question I have, based on your post, is this. With the definition of the universe that you give, can there really be anything that is truly "supernatural"? I know you avoided delving into alot of the questions that automatically would help me figure that our for myself (like God being around at the beginning of said universe and whatnot), and perhaps our own definitions of the words are different, rendering my post meaningless, but if everything living, including lifeforms that are superior to us, is a product of nature, could we then still consider it supernatural? And I am not trying to find fault with your post, I am just looking for an area that I may be able to expand my own perspective.

Thanks.

ButtLight

Leg,

I think there is more "proof" in your bottle of boose, or my beer, than anything!!!!!!!

upside/down

What SNG said...

u/d(of the owns an invisible dog too class)

seattleniceguy

startingover,

Glad you liked the posts!

Mary,

OK, here's a quote from the critique: "...Clearly, even if Strobel's experts are biased, they are not necessarily wrong. But given their obvious bias, considering other sources with different points of view is necessary for objectivity...."
And athiests aren't biased?? I think that's why his book is called The Case for a Creator. Clearly he's getting the opinions of those that believe the evidence points to a Creator, just as athiests will always get the opinions of those that believe in evolution. To me, there very fact that there are any scientists who believe the evidence points to Creation and not evolution, is a milestone.......

First of all, there is no direct relationship between atheism and evolution. There are plenty of theists (Christians aplenty included) that accept evolution. But there is also no relationship at all between evolution and the question of whether there is a God - logically speaking, both could be true, or one, or neither. So be careful not to make the two a dichotomy in your mind.

But on the evolution vs. creation issue, with regard to there being scientists who believe in creation, I wouldn't say that's a milestone of any particular significance. In the Judeo-Christian world where science developed, most scientists traditionally accepted the Christian account of creation as the default position, and it was only via the success of evolution that scientsts eventually came to reject it. So in a way, you can see these few creationist scientists as "hangers on" rather than pioneers.

And when religious interests come into play, there will always be people who believe the way they want to believe in spite of logic or evidence. I'm reminded of the few JWs I know who work in technology fields, exercising a highly analytical mind at work, but somehow still swallowing the religious rhetoric at home and on weekends and evenings. So finding a few credentialed scientists who agree with you doesn't really prove much.

Be that as it may, though, as the critique points out, sometimes the minority opinion is correct. The simple fact that they are bucking the majority doesn't make them wrong by any means. However, any book that presents the minority opinion without any mention of how it stacks up against the majority opinion is clearly not interested in making a solid case, but is playing on reader ignorance.

I mean, think about it. Let's say I want to go head-to-head with the Theory of Relativity. I have a brand spanking new Theory of Seattle that I think kicks Relativity's butt. I can't just go and find a few other people who agree with me and hope to win people over. If I want to make a truly compelling case, I have to show all of the strengths of Relativity (along with its perceived weaknesses), and then go on to show how my theory is even stronger.

It may seem strange to have to discuss the strengths of the opposing opinion, but this is science - we're not selling a used car here. People are going to keep thinking about the issue for years and years to come. You can't just fool them once and be done with it. The strongest case, therefore, is one that honestly treats all the strengths of the current theory. And this is what Christian apologetic works never do.

Anyway, that's my 10 cents or so. :-)

SNG

tetrapod.sapien

ya, like SNG said, parsimony favours a lack of a "God". it's not a 50/50 option really. and that's why i'm an atheist and not an agnostic.

but on the other hand, for all intents and purposes, i am indeed a god. and there is plenty of evidence for my existence that satisfies me. true, i may be no more than a hologram, but it's more than can be said for this jesus guy. therefore, i would argue in favour of the existence of god. :) i would argue in favour of the existence of trillions of gods here on earth. heaven and hell, all wrapped up in one.

i find it amusing that people still use the arguments from design and incredulity so often when asked this question:

theist: "well, look around! we see design everywhere! there must be a god."

atheist: "well, how do you know it was designed?"

theist: "i can't fathom that it wasn't designed! it's too complex!"

which is like saying: "i have a poor imagination and havent read much natural history."

strawman? i think not. i see it used all the time, including this thread.

tetragod

What Do You Think There Is More Proof Of?

Fallacies contained in this claim:

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