the probability of life?

Question

i was watching this bbc documentary on the ongoing "debate" between evolution and intelligent design. part of the documentary discussed the issue of why it's so difficult (mathematically, nearly impossible) to recreate life. consider the following example. take a deck of 52 poker cards. shuffle the deck and lay them out one at a time from the top of the deck to bottom in a straight line face up. note the order of the cards. then, repeat the entire process until you come up with the exact same order. assume, the original order of the cards represents the factors that had to go in to creating life. while it is true, that you could spend your entire life trying to recreate the conditions, and still never achieve the original order of the deck of cards, it does not change the fact that the original order did occur. does it?

marooned... you're missing the point. i realize all that... this information is for people who believe in intelligent design, and that life could not have just formed by chance.

no kenny, it wasn't just one single cell.

mountainman, no, you're assuming life has already occured.

we may be arguing the same point. i'm really not sure. the point of the argument is this, you can't say that just the odds are nearly impossible to recreate the same situation that it never occurred in the first place. i.d.ers claim the opposite.

Answer 1

It's true, it's ridiculous to attempt to figure out the probability after the fact. What are the chances that the specific sperm cell impregnated that specific egg to create you? It doesn't change the fact that here you are.

Answer 2

The analogy is flawed.This one is more realistic.Take a deck of cards,lay them out just as you described.When you redo it,odds are one or more will by chance fall back into the original position.LEAVE those,they stand for beneficial changes/survival traits.Now,shuffle again and place the remaining cards down again.Once again,some will fit in the original position.That is more accurate as to how evolution works.Beneficial changes are kept.Doing it like that,you can get all 52 cards in place in an afternoon.We have had billions of years.To compare it as you did is not intellectually honest,as nature doesn't "start from scratch"each life form,but builds on existing life forms,which would be analogous to the few that did fit in order.That analogy only appeals to those not willing to think it out

Answer 3

Evolution is just another faith but those who believe in it do not see it that way. Evolutionists do not want creationism (which not all creationist scientists are religious) taught in the schools "brainwashing" their children into a religion. What they fail to realize is that a lot of good scientific points get left out because of such a blind faith to their theories. At one point you couldn't have convinced the "intellectual elite" that the earth was anything but flat...now you can't possibly convince them that we are not descended from monkeys!

Answer 4

The universe is 14 billion years old. Life first appeared on earth 3.5 billion years ago.

Play with a deck of cards for 10.5 billion years and then get back to me.

Answer 5

I wonder why, if billions of years ago the conditions that supposedly made life happened, It makes sense to me that it eventually would happen again, and again.......

But instead, from that one single cell that was produced, all life, all animals, all plants, every different species came into being?

Wow, anyone who beloieves THAT has more faith than those of us who believe in Creation.

Answer 6

Since we don't know how life formed, it isn't possible to estimate the probability of it forming. It might be a near certainty, or it might be virtually impossible - or anything in between.