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To: Ichneumon
"From my experience, though, the number of people who can properly assess the 'mathematical possibility' of something is far smaller than the number of folks who *think* they are competent enough to correctly do so."

Please pardon the peasants in the peanut gallery for rolling our eyeballs at such stunningly sanctimonious intellectual elitism.

Believe it or not, some of us can actually read, and thus are privy to the works of mathematicians, astronomers, AND molecular biologists -- however admittedly none can be sure of just how many hundreds of thousands of zeros should be added in assessing the odds of matter randomly evolving into even the simpliest living single cell.

484 posted on 02/25/2003 7:03:21 PM PST by F16Fighter (Democrats: 'Hating and betraying America's heritage is our "right."')
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To: F16Fighter
Believe it or not, some of us can actually read, and thus are privy to the works of mathematicians, astronomers, AND molecular biologists -- however admittedly none can be sure of just how many hundreds of thousands of zeros should be added in assessing the odds of matter randomly evolving into even the simpliest living single cell.

Believe it or not, some of us are actually mathematicians and can understand when ignorant fools are BS-ing the lurkers about odds of bizarre events.

And, believe it or not, some of us are actually scientists who understand when ignorant fools are BS-ing the lurkers because they don't understand that the theory of evolution has never postulated a single cell "springing" into existence from nothing.

Ready for next BS-ing Creationist spin.

490 posted on 02/25/2003 7:14:52 PM PST by balrog666 (When in doubt, tell the truth. - Mark Twain)
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To: F16Fighter
[I wrote:] "From my experience, though, the number of people who can properly assess the 'mathematical possibility' of something is far smaller than the number of folks who *think* they are competent enough to correctly do so."

Please pardon the peasants in the peanut gallery for rolling our eyeballs at such stunningly sanctimonious intellectual elitism.

What "intellectual elitism"? I'm just pointing out the crucial difference between those who can actually follow and verify a mathematical argument, and those who only think they can.

Are you actually going to tell me that there's *not* a meaningful difference in being able to verify a mathematical argument and not being able to?

Believe it or not, some of us can actually read, and thus are privy to the works of mathematicians, astronomers, AND molecular biologists

Believe it or not, some of us *are* mathematicians, and don't have to take someone else's word on faith that they properly analyzed the problem.

Thus my point -- there are a lot of people who think that reading a mathematical argument and believing it because it "looks" good is just as valid as having the ability and taking the effort to actually go over the material and personally validate it. But it's not. Period.

-- however admittedly none can be sure of just how many hundreds of thousands of zeros should be added in assessing the odds of matter randomly evolving into even the simpliest living single cell.

Case in point... *You* can't "be sure". People who are able to follow a mathematical argument *can* be.

And in this particular case, the calculations I've seen proffered for arguing a huge improbability of "the odds of matter randomly evolving into even the simpliest living single cell" are all grossly flawed. Most of them fall flat on the presumption that a "cell" would be the first type of life to arise. For a hint of the issues involved in such a calculation (and a reasonable rough estimate of odds based on more plausible scenarios), see: Probability of Abiogenesis FAQs

650 posted on 02/26/2003 11:40:34 PM PST by Ichneumon
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