Some claim that when one calculates the probability that life would naturally evolve as it has on earth, the results prove that life as we know it is so unlikely that there must have been a creator involved.
However, this conclusion is misleading. It is like dealing out a deck of cards and playing a hand of poker, then calculating the probability that the cards would come out exactly as they just had. This situation would also show that the chance of things turning out precisely as they already have is very small. Nevertheless, that's the way the hand was dealt.
Your thoughts?
2007-06-16 05:43:12 · 15 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
These people assume we live in a world ruled by the normal distribution, which is not true.
"Tail" events, events that are non-linear, etc, occur more often that we realize and have large impacts.
This was something that Mandelbrot studied for years, and has been presented in a non-mathematical version by a Wall Street trader in a recent book.
2007-06-16 05:46:24 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 0⤋
A mathematical arguement against evolution forgets that the Universe is infinitely large and only considers the fact of our existance, the occurrance of the 1 in a million.
The people making this arguement overlook the fact that there are an infinite number of instances where the evolution of us has not occurred.
This is like looking at an already rolled dice, (a 6) and saying that the result (a 6) is unlikely, without even thinking that the dice may have rolled many times.
2007-06-16 23:08:37 · answer #2 · answered by Joe 90 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
The chances of a planet being the right distance away from a star, with the correct make-up and atmosphere, is indeed very tiny. However when you think about the sheer number of planets in the universe, it becomes very probable. There are billions of galaxies with up to trillions of stars each. More than 10% of stars are believed to have planets. Over 13.7 billion years, life was bound to arise on at least one of these planets, maybe more. This planet was Earth.
2007-06-16 06:18:45 · answer #3 · answered by Thoerin 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Evolution is a ramp, not a crane. A long, slow process. Looking at just the beginning and just the end, it seem improbable, but if you understand the process and see the steps along the way, it makes perfect sense...unlike the theory that it was all created in six days by an entity for which there is no evidence.
2007-06-16 05:49:53 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
My husband is getting his Ph D. in mathematics at UC San Diego and I have heard him discussing this and from what he said your conclusions are correct. The chance is small if you try and prove it mathematically, but it doesn't matter, the chance still exists.
I am not a mathematician like my husband, but I would say probability is not something good to prove/disprove evolution.
2007-06-16 05:52:16 · answer #5 · answered by Maddy Jinx 4 · 2⤊ 1⤋
The probability of life evolving argument is christian propaganda. It is based on twisted speculation. Organic life is just a medium of energy, it can occur in the most extreme conditions. For example: Oceanic geothermal vents, or in the bubbling acidic pools in Yellowstone. Life requires very little to exist and only a little more to be prominent. Once our understanding of the known universe (starting with our solar system) grows with process of exploration, hopefully we can kill off most of the fundamental religious propaganda.
2007-06-16 05:53:56 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 1⤋
A gambling man? Not at all. After you realize that there is no God then what is the gamble? That your ego wont let you believe that you are not so important that if you just died the universe could not get along without you? Are you that important? Or that vain?
2007-06-16 16:51:26 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Exactly. I think their problem is that they're still thinking in terms of god having made us - that we had to turn out this way, exactly. They don't realize that evolution had no plan in mind, there was no specific way we needed to turn out, anything may have worked. We could be superintelligent dolphins and thinking the same thing.
2007-06-16 05:47:35 · answer #8 · answered by eri 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
It also falsely assumes that evolution is nothing more than chance. That's a common product of the creationists' inability to see outside his/her narrow worldview - they assume that there are merely two possibilities: intelligently guided processes and purely random processes. But of course the vast majority of processes in the universe fall into the third category - systematic but nonintentional. Evolutionary processes are of course of that nature.
2007-06-16 05:48:50 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
bad comparison, a deck of cards is finite, numbers are infinite!
The one thing that mathematics proves is that no one on earth can claim they invented anything! Take any set of numbers and calculate them together, ask yourself in the middle, "Is the answer already there?" Of course it is! Everything invented already existed based on math!
2007-06-16 05:49:36 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋