Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

To: guitarplayer1953
guitarplayer1953: “They believe that order comes out of chaos too.”

That is at least plausible. Look at a chaotic explosion and you'll find at least some orderly patterns within it. It's the argument that if you put a near infinite number of chimps on typewriters or put one chimp on a typewriter for a near infinite period of time, sooner or later one of Shakespeare's plays would be typed. If you had that play in your hands, you might very well think it was typed intentionally, but it was entirely random. You couldn't even prove randomness or intention with statistical analysis, because that play could have been the first thing typed (highly improbable but not impossible) or produced after billions upon billions of years of typing.

25 posted on 01/11/2012 10:01:11 PM PST by CitizenUSA (What's special about bad? Bad is easy. Anyone can do it. Try good instead!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies ]


To: CitizenUSA

The problem is that such arguments rely on actual infinity and properties of the random distribution which may or may not hold.

The universe, while large, is finite, and of finite age. Arguments that ordered arrangements must arise in random (or arbitrary) structures of sufficient size are the domain of a part of mathematics called Ramsey theory. It turns out that the sizes of structures needed to guarantee ordered arrangements of even simple sorts can be staggeringly large (look up “Graham’s problem” and “Graham’s number” for an example). It is not at all clear that the old “the universe is so old and so big that life would have to arise just by chance” argument is actually valid.


35 posted on 01/11/2012 10:55:00 PM PST by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies ]

To: CitizenUSA
Yea and I can throw a cup of ink into the air and when it lands on a canvas prestochangeo it looks like the Mona Lisa.

"billions upon billions of years of typing." there has not been enough time for all the chips to fall into place to have the diversity of animal, flora, and insects that this world holds.

I heard a theory that possible microbial life came here from a comet or asteroid. Well if that was true then the moon should have more life than any place since it has so many pock marks from asteroids hitting.

36 posted on 01/12/2012 12:40:57 AM PST by guitarplayer1953 (Grammar & spelling maybe wrong, get over it, the world will not come to an end!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies ]

To: CitizenUSA

Even moreso is considering organic chemistry. Yes, it’s incredibly improbable that you can form DNA from what? Again, this isn’t to say that we can’t synthesize incredible chemical compounds from base materials such as sugars or petroleum, but all chemical syntheses require incredibly strict, step by step control of the chemical reaction to work. Even then, you have to sort out what is the genuine product, and what are the isomers. All I am saying is that yes, some things are just rediculous to try and leave it up to saying a random origin produced it, organic chemistry is only part of it, too.


43 posted on 01/12/2012 5:50:35 PM PST by Morpheus2009
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson