Because there's a 1 in 10^60 chance that life began by chance, this means god HAS to exist, right?

Question

Where did this number come from? Anyone know? And did they take into account the 4.5 BILLION (+- a few hundred million) years it could have taken for that chance to occur? Or are they basing that number on the equations based on the bible that the earth is roughly 12,000 years old?

gjmb1960 --> Try Yahoo'ing that number. You'll find it littered throughout questions here in Y!A. I got that number from "Intelligent" Designers who despute the "chance" of life forming.

Answer 1

Even accepting those odds, remember that it's not necessary for all the flukes to happen at once. This is important.

Whenever one small fluke took place, it stuck - and then waited around for the next fluke.

Applying this to the 'hurricane in a scrapyard' scenario, it's as if millions of hurricanes hit the scrapyard over billions of years. Each time two bits of 747 came together, they froze in place, and then waited for the next hurricane. Over time, the 747 would slowly emerge, piece by piece.

CD

Answer 2

it comes from the chances that all the necessary contants that are required for this universe to exist all come out exactly right
I forget how many there are but constants like gravity have a billion variations that it could have been and only one had to come out for our life to exits
multiply that by all the other necessary constants and all the possible variations they could have been and they get that number - it is purely scientific having nothing to do with the Bible

some would say that well it all must have happened just right b/c there could have been mulitple universes and it only stopped when it got it right - only problem is there is absolutely no evidence for any other universe

Answer 3

The probability that life began by chance is much closer to 1:1. It is not a particularly special event. It is easy to reproduce in a lab. Organic chemical just "happen" when you add the mix that existed on primaeval Earth and energy.

Answer 4

"Where did this number come from? Anyone know?"

It was pulled directly out of someone's *** and typed directly onto the internet, where it became treated as truth by those desperate to believe despite the absence of evidence.

No-one knows anywhere near enough to make any kind of meaningful quantitative statement about the probability of life arising "by chance", and of course no-one believes that it came about by chance: scientists believe that it came about as a result of natural processes, which is not even remotely the same thing as "by random chance".

Answer 5

I don't think we know enough to accurately state what the odds are for of life to have randomly begun. Only when we understand the whole process can we accurately determine the chances of it happening.

Answer 6

i think it's true all the things that had to come in to place for evolution to start are pretty low (but it refers to our solar system not to the universe)
but you have to take in account the number of stars/planets in the universe so with such a huge number of planets life by my opinion probably exists outside our planet

Answer 7

I doubt that life could happen by "chance".
Luckily, the chemicals that existed on prehistoric earth were reactive by NATURE. Life didn't occur randomly... it was bound to happen.

Answer 8

Strange question ....

You come up with this number,

so you should tell us where you found it

Not us.

Answer 9

I don't know that but read these sites.

Genesis 1
The Beginning
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.