Probability question

[Alterego]

I hate to say it but this is over my head, and i was wondering if its at all possible to check this figure? any help in this is greatly appreciated

 

 

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design_evidences/200404_probabilities_for_life_on_earth.shtml

[Turtle]

I hate to say it but this is over my head, and i was wondering if its at all possible to check this figure? any help in this is greatly appreciated

 

 

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design_evidences/200404_probabilities_for_life_on_earth.shtml

 

The figure is irrelevant. You are alive regardless, as am I, as are we.. :)

[Alterego]

The figure is irrelevant. You are alive regardless, as am I, as are we.. :)

:( lol, thanks for your quick reply i was beginning to wonder??? by the way i like your signature. i dont know if you ever seen the movie Undersiege, but one of my favorite quotes comes from the bad guy in the movie- "Chance favors the prepared mind", of course he dies, but hey, its still a great quote, and that was my signature for awhile.

[Pyrotex]

I hate to say it but this is over my head, and i was wondering if its at all possible to check this figure? any help in this is greatly appreciated

On the surface, this may seem like a reasonable approach, with reasonable probabilities. Its intended audience has no desire to go any deeper and so this will suffice for them. But if one is prone to deeper inspection, the whole shebang is deeply flawed.

 

1. There is no way of knowing how to calculate the odds of life on one planet or a trillion. Any "technique" is going to be a random hodgepodge of criteria.

2. Since we are the only instance of Life that we know, we have no way at all of determining the dependence of Life evolving as a function of ANY of the given parameters. For example, if one of the parameters was changed, the biggest result might be Life completely different than Humans, but still Life. There is just no way of telling.

3. The sources of many of the "probabilities" look bogus, to be honest. Many of the books, websites and contributors are suspiciously associated with religious groups, such as the Creation Science Institute and others.

4. The whole enterprise appears to be a framework, an excuse, for multiplying lots and lots of small numbers in order to get a really teensy teensy-weensy number. If I were to argue that several small probabilities should be much larger, they can just add a few more small parameters.

5. There is no way of knowing if many of those parameters could be different then they are! Are there universes where the proton/electron ratio is different? Are there even other universes, period? Could this ratio have been other than what it is? How would we know this? We can't. We don't.

6. This entire approach is in no way modeled upon any real, known or suspected processes for producing life.

7. Give me a few days, and I can "prove" that the probability of God existing is 10^-1625, a vastly, vastly, vastly smaller number--using THE VERY SAME TECHNIQUE AND ARGUMENTS. So what? What will I have proven by this? Nothing, except that I can multiply lots of small numbers.

:)