How do the laws of statistics and probability describe the evolutionary claim that life came about by chance?

Answer 1

Pretty easily actually.

Evolution happens over an incredibly long timescale - millions and millions of years. On that timescale, the most unlikely events are likely to occur sooner or later.

Let's suppose that the chances of the most primitive single-cell life coming about by chance are 1,000,000 to one against. It's unlikely for a million-to-one chance event to happen on any given day. But over a million days, it is likely to happen at least once. A million days is 2739 years, which in evolutionary time is a two-minute rest break. Over 2739 years, your million-to-one chance is likely to come about 365 times.

This is a very non-technical version of it and the actual numbers are quite different, but it does show how we tend to underestimate the scale of time that evolution is talking about.

The whole point of evolution by natural selection is that life only has to come about once, to get things going. After that, nothing happens by chance. Natural selection has nothing to do with chance and anybody, like DazMaz, who says it's all governed by chance, doesn't understand it.

Answer 2

Life is just a convention - a word, or a classification - there's no "real" thing called Life that you can infuse into anything.

That's the main problem with most western science, the philisophy behind it is so lacking.

For example, if the big bang is the start of the universe what caused the big bang? How can you have a previous moment to the beginning?

Because there never was a beginning, the same as life doesn't have a beginning or an end. Just as the physicists have found, all energy in a system is conserved, but it can change forms...

...lets hope quantum theory and boolean logic soon clear out all that old science crap that people (including a lot of scientists) are still holding on to.

Evolution isn't the be all and end all of theories. It's quite possible that all evolution is doing is to describe change and extrapolate (wrongly) the mechanism producing that change. For instance, why would humans evolve mathematical abilities to the extent they have? What use is it?? Natural selection can only work on skills that are matured and useful - how could your ancestors have developed a strong enough maths ability to pass on so that now we can become programmers and physicists???

But you're probably just trying to answer some homework and you teacher who's addicted to academia won't want to hear that ;)

Answer 3

This is statistical foolishness you cannot use probability to argue backwards. The probability that a student in a classroom has a particular birthday is 1/365; arguing this way, the probability that everyone in a class of 50 would have the birthdays they do is (1/365)50, and yet there the class sits.

Biologists agree that evolutionary changes occurred over millions of years. The intermediates in the evolution of the mammalian ear can be seen in fossils, and many intermediate "eyes" are known in various invertebrates. These intermediate forms arose because they have valuebeing able to detect light a little is better than not being able to detect it at all. Complex structures like eyes evolved as a progression of slight improvements. Probabilities enter the picture by showing that there's a high probability species will improve and thereby survive by evolving better systems to live.

Answer 4

There are two main factors that are problematic for the ardent evolutionist.

1. There is no recorded example of one species 'evolving' into another. In our case, H.S.S., for example, there simply is no 'missing link'.

2. The point of this question, the sheer statistical improbability of the progression of some pond scum, infused with .....what...?...lightning ?, which seems to be the somewhat Frankensteinian argument, then progressing to single cell structures like amoeba and so on, which are, compared to pond scum pretty sophisticated life forms. From there we make the great leap to mammals, and reptiles and avians and trees and and and and

and all by chance............hehehehehe, I don't think so.

Answer 5

The whole thing is a myth.

Answer 6

very eloquently

Answer 7

they dont