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To: Centurion2000
[Without using ANY faith and mere observation it is possible to deduce that SOMEONE created/designed the universe.] [So you believe, anyway.]

No ... this is straight observation; the odds against chance being responsible are too high to have ever happened in the observed lifetime of the universe.

I await your probability calculation for universe formation. Be sure to show your work.

I'm not trying to prove that the God of the Bible created the universe. SOMEONE did as the odds against natural formation are so laughable that you would have to win the lottery every day of your life to duplicate it.

Again, I await the details of your probability calculation. And if your calculated result is larger than 10-184000, then your above claim is wildly overexagerated. Don't make claims about probabilities and numbers unless you've actually produced some.

I'm not talking about belief or faith in deducing the existence of an intelligence guiding creation.

Sure you are.

30 physical constants in the universe are EXACTLY what's needed to provide life ot the universe. Move any of them by more than 2% higher or lower and life becomes IMPOSSIBLE.

Please name the 30 physical constants, and provide the calculated range of their "allowable" values, and by what criteria each range was calculated. Specify whether by "life" you mean "life of *our* particular type", or "life of any conceivable form, chemistry, or composition". Again, show your work.

Also please demonstrate that a) those constants *could* have had other values (for all you know, their current values may be the only values possible, making their probability 100%), b) there is only one universe (as opposed to a multitude (or infinitude) of varying universes, vastly increasing the odds of a "good" one appearing in the bunch, c) that all "30" physical constants are entirely independent of each other (if not, then there may be far fewer degrees of freedom, again raising the odds), and d) that you have accounted for every conceivable alternative form that life could take when calculating your calculation of what the constants would "have" to be to make some form of life possible.

Finally, address the Anthropic Principle (in its six primary forms) and explain how it impacts your thesis.

Use a #2 pencil and show your work. You have sixty minutes, at which time the proctor will collect your papers. Begin.

Biochemistry : abiogenisis cannot be duplicated.

If you mean it's impractical for us to set up a virgin planet and let it cook for several hundred million years as some sort of long-term experiment, you're right. On the other hand, I don't think you can duplicate the first book of Genesis, either.

But that doesn't mean we can't reconstruct what most probably happened by studying chemical properties and tracing clues from the physical configuration of the prebiotic Earth, and the internal structure of extant life. For example, The Path from the RNA World .

There's not even a model that allows for it.

Man, are *you* behind on the literature...

Here's a model for you: On the origins of cells:a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes,and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells. Here's another: The emergence of life from iron monosulphide bubbles at a submarine hydrothermal redox and pH front. For much more, follow the dozens of references contained in those papers.

Just evolutionary 'faith' that it had to happen.

No, evidence and painstaking reconstruction.

Look at a bee, mathematically it should not be able to fly, yet it does.

Because mathematically, it can. The silly old urban legend about bees (actually, the original statement was about bumblebees) not being able to fly according to mathematical analysis dates back to the 1930's, and was based only on the Reynolds number of bumblebee wings, which basically only shows that they couldn't *glide* if their wings were held out flat and rigid like an airplanes. But needless to say, that's not how bumblebees fly -- they flap their wings very rapidly, and even back in the 30's a more comprehensive analysis which included the flapping demonstrated that there's nothing "mathemagical" about their ability to fly. See McMasters (in the Amer. Sci. 77:164-169).

So... Why are you 70+ years behind on this? And doesn't your example actually show that overly simplistic calculations (like your "30 constants" case above) are likely to be missing some key factor and thus achieve a misleading result?

There is evidence of an intelligent design across the universe.

Back to unsupported assertions so soon?

It take more faith to deny the existence of a God than it does to merely acknowledge it's presence.

So who created God? It seems that by postulated some unspecified "god" to explain what you consider to be an unlikely combination of "settings" for our universe, you're creating an even bigger problem for yourself by now leaving unanswered the issue of how to explain the infinitely more unlikely existence of an ultrapowerful being whose substance must surely be vastly more "fine tuned" than just 30 or so physical constants. You've "solved" one question by swapping it for a vastly bigger one.

Conversely, if you're going to wave your hands and just say, "god didn't need to be created by anything to end up existing", then why can't that same notion be applied to the much simpler universe itself, thus undercutting your claim of a "need" for god in the first place as an originator of the universe?

225 posted on 10/18/2003 10:07:05 AM PDT by Ichneumon
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To: Ichneumon
You've "solved" one question by swapping it for a vastly bigger one.

Only if you consider as bigger questions such things as existence without time, or an infinite past, extracorporeal consciousness, extracorporeal sense perception, omniscience, omnipotence, not to mention the age-old Christian quandary of the suffering of the righteous and the innocent as witnessed by a loving omnipotent entity.

234 posted on 10/18/2003 10:19:30 AM PDT by beavus
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To: Ichneumon
***I await your probability calculation for universe formation. Be sure to show your work.***


I have a better idea, what are your odds? Or are you one of those who insist that a room full of monkeys with keyboards can write the complete works of Shakespeare?
242 posted on 10/18/2003 12:09:29 PM PDT by Gamecock (15 days to Reformation Day, don't forget to hug a Calvinist!)
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