Posted on 08/29/2018 8:14:37 AM PDT by Salvation
I was alerted to a fascinating article by Ali Binazir, who sets forth mathematically the probably that each of us exists. It turns out that when taking into account the astonishing number of possibilities of parents meeting, grandparents meeting before them, and so on going back generations, and then adding the vast number of sperm and ova in possible combinations over decades of the marital act in all those generations, the odds of me existing just as I do are about 1 in 102,685,000. That’s a number so huge it hurts to think about it.
To say that we are contingent beings is a vast understatement. To say that someone or something is contingent is to say that the existence of same is not inevitable but rather can only come about based on a number of previous things being true in a chain of being or causality. I would not exist if my parents had not existed and then met. Further, they would not have existed if their parents had not existed and met, and so on. Thus, my existence depends on a vast number of “meetings” going just right; if they hadn’t I would never have been born.
Consider some of the contingencies and requirements for your existence as set forth by Mr. Binazir. Some of the numbers are approximations, but generally they are on the conservative side. I am only publishing a small number of his musings, but you can read his full article here: What Are the Chances of You Being Born?.
The following analysis, paraphrased at some points, is taken directly from Mr. Binazir’s article:
The probability of father meeting mother is 1 in 20,000. The chances of them talking to one another is 1 in 10. The chances of that turning into another meeting is about 1 in 10. The chances of that turning into a long-term relationship is about 1 in 10. The chances of that lasting long enough to result in offspring is 1 in 2.
Now let’s get down to some of the biological details: each sperm and each egg is genetically unique because of the process of meiosis; you are the result of the fusion of one particular egg with one particular sperm. A fertile woman has about 100,000 viable eggs while a man will produce about 12 trillion sperm over the course of his reproductive lifetime.
However, your existence presupposes another supremely unlikely chain of events. Namely, that every one of your ancestors lived to reproductive age, going back about 150,000 generations to the origin of man.
Remember the sperm-meeting-egg argument for the creation of you, since each gamete is unique? The right sperm also had to meet the right egg to create your grandparents; otherwise they’d be different people and so would their children, who would then have had children who were similar to you but not quite you. This is also true of your grandparents’ parents, and their parents, and so on back to the beginning of human time. That means that in every step of your lineage, the exact the right sperm had to fertilize the exact right egg such that you would ultimately be created.
To complete the analysis: (102,640,000) (1045,000) (40,000,000) = 4 x 102,685,007 ≈ 102,685,000.
Thus, the probability of your existing at all is about 1 in 102,685,000.
You may quibble with some of the Binazir’s assumptions above. I would certainly add in (sadly) that there is the possibility of abortion or miscarriage, but even a simple analysis yields an astonishingly small probability.
One of my brothers made his own calculation regarding one of Binazir’s assumptions and came up with a figure that would make the probability of existence even smaller:
My numbers are more simplistic, but assuming 100,000 eggs/woman & 12 trillion sperm/man creates 1.2 x 10^18 combinations for every man/woman pairing (i.e., significantly more combinations than the 400 trillion or 4 x 10^14 mentioned in the article). If you assume there are 3 billion women and 3 billion men alive today, that means 3 x 10^14 eggs and 3.6 x 10^22 sperm are currently on the planet, for a total of 1.1 x 10^37 possible pairings. If you assume the current population is 1% of the history of humanity, the total number of combinations increases to 1.1 x 10^39.
Not only are you and I contingent, we are highly improbable! Yet here we are. Mirabile visu (Wondrous to behold)!
Theologically, of course, we are no accident; we do not exist by happenstance. God has always known us, intended us, loved us, and planned for us. Scripture says,
Yes, you’re here all right, and math can barely account for your existence, so tiny are the odds; but God has overseen every detail and knew you long before you were born. In fact, He has been preparing a place for each of us in the kingdom, from before the creation of the world. Not only has He always known us; he has known everything each of us would do, for every one of our days has been written in His book before one of them ever came to be.
The great mystery of our existence stretches back in time into the very heart and mind of God who has always known and loved us, has prepared for us and made a way for us. You are wonderfully and fearfully made, and God has done a marvelous thing. You’re not just one in a million, you’re one in a 102,685,000.
This video makes a moving point, but it attributes our existence to luck. You are not here by luck; you are here by the grace and will of God.
We exist just like the Higgs Boson and for the
same amount of time.
I’ll just tell the IRS that I don’t exist.
Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that’s the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space,
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth!
No magic about it — only the will of God.
The ultimate question is: Are we? Because as Einstein said, “Reality is just a perception, it is just a persistent one.”
Dr James Tour of Rice University spoke at one of the August Apologetics evenings at my church. He showed the extreme improbability of a single cell forming from mere ingredients. The only way a single cell could have formed from the primordial soup is by the hand of the Creator.
Now let’s worry about existence going forward.
Then the calculation is irrelevant, for I exist.
Yes, I am a contingent being. St Thomas knows what that word means. The nature of God is that he is not a contingent being. Existence is his very nature.
All existence flows from God.
The probability of me existing approaches 1.000000.
The probability of me existing approaches 1.000000.
Even if a single cell did somehow form from mere ingredients, what would then cause it to split into two or more parts, with each part then growing to the size of the original cell, and each in turn in turn splitting?
Not gonna happen spontaneously.
And then there’s the whole question of “How did sexual reproduction then begin?”.
Not everything is changed by the Butterfly Effect. Some things would be unchanged. Some things would converge. And, some things would change back. Many changes would be imperceptible or irrelevant.
Whatever you want it to be.
I laugh when people say there is other life in the universe. Says who? There is no basis to believe either way, but certainly there is no evidence of possible life beyond earth.
I laugh when people say there HAS TO BE other inhabitable planets. Says who? It could be that the earth is the only rock in the entire universe that has ideal conditions of heat, cold, sun, darkness, atmosphere, water, and climate to support life. It is not mathematically probable, but it is possible. It could be that every other body in the universe is hostile to life.
If you believe God made us and the Universe, then all bets are off. Maybe God has filled millions of planets with life. Or not. Nobody knows. There certainly is no reason to believe there is other life out there. “Just because” is not a reason.
Welcome to the new school term.
My great grandfather was a Civil War veteran and fought in the bloody Wilderness Campaign. I have often thought that had he been one of the thousands of casualties, I would not be here.
This is completely wrong. The probability of you existing is 100%. If you didn’t exist, there would be no one to ponder the question of existence.
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