Posted on 12/05/2005 4:06:56 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Something not mentioned very often is that DNA readily takes a crystaline form. I can't help thinking this will eventually have some relevance to calculating the odds.
As well it should. The preachers running around lying to kids in museums are despicable.
What's wrong with being elitist? Conservatives (as opposed reactionary populists) are by nature elitist.
Nobody is trying to tell Behe and others they can't present their work to the scientific community to try to get it accepted. You confuse rejection based on lack of merit with stifling.
Each shuffle of a deck of cards has an outcome which is one in 52! (That's 52 factorial, which is 8.06581752 × 1067.) It's a huge number. For comparison, the estimated number of stars in the universe is "only" 1021. Source: this NASA website.
So the odds against any particular card shuffle are truly beyond astronomical. Yet, if you go ahead and shuffle a deck ... ta-DA! There it is. You've obtained a virtually impossible outcome. Similarly, the odds against the history of England being what it has been are probably even greater (I wouldn't even guess at how to quantify that).
The point is that computing the odds against such things doesn't do much for you -- especially when you're dealing with events that have already happened, when the events have become a 100% certainty. I've labeled this kind of thinking the fallacy of retrospective astonishment. It applies to the existence of each of us, when you consider the odds against each specific conception for each of your ancestors. And it also applies to the development of the presently-existing biosphere on Earth.
One can, if so inclined, see the hand of Providence in each such outcome. Or not (as each step along the way is a natural event). There's no scientific answer to such speculations. But there's always Occam's Razor.
Yet here we are. Just like a shuffle of a deck of cards. We're highly improbable. If it were to start all over again, some other shuffle of the cards would take our place. We're unique. Never to be repeated. Irreplaceable. Priceless.
Which might cause some wondering about the conservative credentials of those who toss around "elitist" as though it were a stick to beat someone with...
Thanks for the ping!
Such calculation of odds assumes that life as we know it today is the desired end point. I'd have extremely bad odds on predicting right now what movie will win the 2020 Academy Award for best picture (especially since it hasn't been made yet), but it's pretty good odds that one will. After the 2010 ceremony, do we say "This movie couldn't have won because the odds against it winning were beyond calculation."
I don't support or adhere to ID either...but I would never quote Giberson and/or The John Templeton Foundation in defense of my objection to ID.
In your case, I believe that it is must be an instance of...my enemy's enemy is my friend.
BTW, when creationists do that...you guys call it quote-mining.
I agree...
Doctor James F. Coppedge is a real-life scientician - clearly the mistake is ours, somewhere. If only we weren't so thick-headed, we'd be able to see how 1 is equivalent to 2.6...
Speciation in progress?
It's not quote mining when you provide a link to the full text.
You should read the reasons that Templeton does not support ID. It's very interesting.
Given infinity, everything has a probability approaching 1.
If you're willing to grant the status of "science" to reasonable inferences based upon unobserved, unrecorded processes, then don't be surprised when certain folks who cannot produce an intelligent designer infer that one exists where organized matter presents itself, and call such inferences "science," too.
Don't forget lab coats.
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