Posted on 08/01/2005 10:58:13 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
Because, of all the species capable of typing, only monkeys are stupid enough to sit there for 4 billion years.
OH yeah???
What are YOU typing on???
;^)
But if the odds were 2.5 X 10150 then in 250,000,000,000 weeks you wouldn't even have begun.
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/fte/darwinism/chapter6.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/8830/mathproofcreat.html
Thank you kind sir!
Sorry, see 1402....should've pinged you. :>)
Since statistically one is about 3 times more likely to be hit be lightning as win the big one, I figure that as soon as I DO get hit, THEN I'll buy a ticket!
Just because there is a cruise line, there are hurricanes, and the river does exist, AND there is the possibility of a cruise liner being blown toward the Mississippi, that does not mean it will ever happen.
The probability of the asked for outcome will remain so far out of the reach of the odds of each trial that it will effectively be zero.
When you do get hit, then correspond to me from beyond with the added insight that comes from your heavenly location and tell ME what numbers to play.
Don't forget now! :>)
What does "effectively zero" mean?
Effectively, though, I have subtracted 2/3 from 2/3 and received an answer of zero.
At what point do the laws of physics fail to explain reality?
IOWs, how do you quantify this transition point,
where the laws of physics breakdown and the intelligent guy comes in?
Thing is, they don't want to turn 'ID' into a branch of science; they want, rather, to turn science into a branch of theology.
Cargo cults! Cargo cults! Cargo cults!
The bolding below is an artifact of the original post, which had to do with the status of Archaeopteryx. Anyway, per PH's request:
You really need to start consulting sources other than those provided by creationist institutes or websites. Regarding Colin Patterson:
During the lecture a quotation of Dr. Colin Patterson was used to justify the standard creationist argument that 'there are no transitional forms.' Numerous other creationists I have encountered have used the quote, and an extended version (which fills in the text between the ellipsis) appears in the CSF "Revised Quote Book", published in 1990. So the quote is in wide usage, at least in Australia:[Bolding above is mine]. A little later at the same website, we find this:
"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. . .I will lay it on the line, There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument."I decided to get to the bottom of the matter. The quote is from a personal letter dated 10th April 1979 from Dr. Patterson to creationist Luther D. Sunderland and is referring to Dr. Patterson's book "Evolution" (1978, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.). My first step was to read the book. (I believe it is now out of print, but most university libraries should have a copy.) Anyone who has actually read the book can hardly say that Patterson believed in the absence of transitional forms. For example (p131-133):
-- Dr. Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History.
"In several animal and plant groups, enough fossils are known to bridge the wide gaps between existing types. In mammals, for example, the gap between horses, asses and zebras (genus Equus) and their closest living relatives, the rhinoceroses and tapirs, is filled by an extensive series of fossils extending back sixty-million years to a small animal, Hyracotherium, which can only be distinguished from the rhinoceros-tapir group by one or two horse-like details of the skull. There are many other examples of fossil 'missing links', such as Archaeopteryx, the Jurassic bird which links birds with dinosaurs (Fig. 45), and Ichthyostega, the late Devonian amphibian which links land vertebrates and the extinct choanate (having internal nostrils) fishes. . ."
I phoned the British Museum of Natural History and to my delight discovered that Dr. Patterson was still working there. I faxed him the text of the quote [regarding fossils and transitionals, specifically Archaeopteryx] and asked him whether my interpretation, the creationist interpretation, or some other interpretation of his words was correct. Here is his reply dated 16 August 1993:There's much, much more here.Dear Mr Theunissen, Sorry to have taken so long to answer your letter of July 9th. I was away for a while, and then infernally busy. I seem fated continually to make a fool of myself with creationists. The specific quote you mention, from a letter to Sunderland dated 10th April 1979, is accurate as far as it goes. The passage quoted continues "... a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way to put them to the test."I think the continuation of the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct, and the creationists' is false.
That brush with Sunderland (I had never heard of him before) was my first experience of creationists. The famous "keynote address" at the American Museum of Natural History in 1981 was nothing of the sort. It was a talk to the "Systematics Discussion Group" in the Museum, an (extremely) informal group. I had been asked to talk to them on "Evolutionism and creationism"; fired up by a paper by Ernst Mayr published in Science just the week before. I gave a fairly rumbustious talk, arguing that the theory of evolution had done more harm than good to biological systematics (classification). Unknown to me, there was a creationist in the audience with a hidden tape recorder. So much the worse for me. But my talk was addressed to professional systematists, and concerned systematics, nothing else.
I hope that by now I have learned to be more circumspect in dealing with creationists, cryptic or overt. But I still maintain that scepticism is the scientist's duty, however much the stance may expose us to ridicule.
Yours Sincerely,
[signed]
Colin Patterson
thanks
ah sorry about saying it was a hoax - my mistake
Why do you think the laws of physics break down?
But you're so busy talking to yourself that no one else can get a word in.
Please, please, learn some math before you make a fool of yourself again.
Allah akbar!
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