[Southack]

"Without knowing the history of earth in detail, anything said about the probabilities of this happening is speculation."

That's incorrect. The specific math involved in calculating probabilities is not speculation.

[Dan Day]

"Without knowing the history of earth in detail, anything said about the probabilities of this happening is speculation."

That's incorrect. The specific math involved in calculating probabilities is not speculation.

But for pete's sake, you can't calculate a valid probability at all until you have a good idea what sort of process you're attempting to mathematically model.

Thus his point.

[ThinkPlease]

That's incorrect. The specific math involved in calculating probabilities is not speculation.

But Mr. Watson's assumptions ARE speculation, and that's where we all have problems with it. I'm surprised you can't see that.