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To: PatrickHenry
The biggest problem with these computations that take all the mutations that ever happened and then whomp up some kind of factorial result by stringing together all the generations is simply that ... each generation is mathematically on its own!

It is not so much a fallacy as it is a case of people being ignorant of math, and probability theory and statistics is something most people find difficult to get right generally. Heck, I have to think about some of these things very hard to make sure I'm applying the math correctly and I'm supposed to know this stuff.

This particular misapplication of math refuses to die on these threads. The most common invalid uses are the assumption of an isotropic probability space (doesn't exist really but it makes the math *much* easier, never mind the wildly invalid results), and what you allude to above, inverting the size of the phase space and calling it "statistical probability".

If one can get people to acknowledge that the probability space is not isotropic, it will follow from the math that many outcomes are astronomically more probable than the number arrived at by inverting the size of the phase space.

1,421 posted on 02/02/2005 8:28:08 AM PST by tortoise (All these moments lost in time, like tears in the rain.)
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To: tortoise
"the probability space is not isotropic,"

An inference of Intelligent Design, that would be.

1,426 posted on 02/02/2005 8:36:34 AM PST by bvw
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To: tortoise
If one can get people to acknowledge that the probability space is not isotropic,

A recent study showed that most people believed that a bullet shot from a curved barrel would circle back around on them.

1,428 posted on 02/02/2005 8:38:13 AM PST by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
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To: tortoise
If one can get people to acknowledge that the probability space is not isotropic...

As a semi-inumerant, I would appreciate a link to an explanation of whatever that means. Or a concrete example.

1,448 posted on 02/02/2005 9:38:13 AM PST by js1138
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To: tortoise
It [the "fallacy of incorporating the continuum"] is not so much a fallacy as it is a case of people being ignorant of math, and probability theory and statistics is something most people find difficult to get right generally.

Yes, but the result is a worthless argument. Call it a false assumption if you like. But I named it, and I'll stick with it for a while. (I'm my biggest fan.)

1,510 posted on 02/02/2005 11:48:30 AM PST by PatrickHenry (<-- Click on my name. The List-O-Links for evolution threads is at my freeper homepage.)
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To: tortoise

I'm glad that FINALLY someone has explained it!


1,524 posted on 02/02/2005 12:01:02 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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