Question:
"Intelligent Design" likes to argue that the probability of life appearing spontaneously is so small.....?
1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
"Intelligent Design" likes to argue that the probability of life appearing spontaneously is so small.....?
33 answers:
l3ecarefulhere
2009-01-14 05:20:45 UTC
It doesnt really matter what the odds are, since it occured.
J
2009-01-14 05:19:45 UTC
Good point. Prepare for harsh criticism.
2009-01-14 05:21:55 UTC
the probability of there being an omniscient, omnipotent, morally perfect being is even lower.
2009-01-14 05:40:00 UTC
The argument goes that you can't send a tornado through a junk yard and get an assembled jumbo jet out of it, no matter how many junk yards you try it with.
2009-01-14 05:38:17 UTC
Consider this



Fingerprints of Creation

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5725394906886443944



Mysteries In Science

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zTXxpXOoe0





Our Solar System: Evidence For Creation

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2535369046252590943&ei=_aqlSOe3MYOm4QLPkeki&q=creation+evidence&hl=en
qxzqxzqxz
2009-01-14 05:25:06 UTC
What makes you think that the proponents of ID would understand probability theory...
?
2009-01-14 05:21:23 UTC
Intellingent design proponents have never managed to present a properly argued explanation of how they have established the basis for calculating the probability of a non-random event of unknown likelihood and mechanism.



How many planets they choose to include in their calculations pales into insignificance beside that fairly fundamental flaw.
Tropos
2009-01-14 05:31:29 UTC
If life had formed on another planet millions of light years away, we would be asking that question from there instead.
2009-01-14 05:20:12 UTC
The probability IS small, religion or no religion. They just take it a step farther.



"Life doesn't appear spontaneously...........

God creates it" -- Even if a god did create life, it was still a spontaneous appearance in terms of the universe.
2009-01-14 05:25:42 UTC
As there is no doubt that it did appear it seams to me there is no reason to argue about the odds. I would think the odds of there being a Sky Daddy would be far greater.
2009-01-14 13:49:44 UTC
I love all of the answers here.



A question to people disproving evolution by saying how IMPOSSIBLE it is for everything we have - the complex cell, oxygen, the perfect amount of sunlight, et cetera - have you ever considered that we are the way we are BECAUSE of all of that? That we require lots of oxygen to survive because when the unicellular organisms came to life, it was the most prevalent source available, and not the other way around? Have you ever considered that the only reason we haven't found life is because we can't RECOGNIZE the life there, because it's different than our own?



Open your minds a little. It's not difficult.
arlette
2016-05-28 06:11:27 UTC
When I think about living my life consciously and making deliberate choices I think of not letting something happen because I simply failed to choose, eg if you are in a relationship that isn't 100% fulfilling be honest with yourself why you are there. Is it because you are too emotionally week to go, is it that you prefer to be with someone rather than no one, is it because although you don't love that person their feelings for you make you feel secure? Once you have worked out why you are staying work on that reason and help yourself to move forward. So although you may stay in the relationship you haven't done it because you failed to choose to leave. It's difficult to explain but it's really about making yourself responsible for every aspect of your life. You cant choose how people react to you but you can choose how you let that affect you. This puts you in a very strong and central position in your own life. You also need to realize when being spontaneous is a good thing, it allows chance and new people and new challenges into your life, these will help enrich you as a person and allow you to make better deliberate choices in the future. The other thing to realize is that when you routinely live your life in a deliberate way although you may feel as though you have done something spontaneous you have properly just weighed up the pros and cons very very quickly. Once you have good judgment I don't believe that it gets significantly worse just because you implement it quickly. So the unifying principle is you and you developing a good sense of judgement.
2009-01-14 05:35:33 UTC
you have no idea what the odds really are do you?

1. a sun that gives off the correct rays to support life

2. A planet positioned just close enough to the sun that if it were one tenth of a light year closer we'd burn up or freeze in the opposite direction.

3. Atmosphere with correct amounts of O2, co2, and Nitrogen

4. atmosphere that blocks harmful radiation

5. A planet that has a magnetic orientation



That is just a few of the planetary things that would have to be "just right". There are many more. The idea that there are many "earths" out there is so improbable as to be laughable. Even if there were 1 billion planets that fit all of the "just right" for life on the planet there is still all the problems of abiogenesis, and evolution that would make it laughably impossible.
Martin S
2009-01-14 05:23:09 UTC
Is amount of galaxies and planets estimated to be in the universe, a good enough cause to create new odds?



It would only be a basis for creating new odds if you were to postulate chance being the architect of the DNA codes found in all living beings that might "possibly" exist in the universe.



Since the ID argument is specifically talking about the odds of life spontaneously appearing here on earth, the rest of the universe does not fit into that equation unless like Richard Dawkins you want to postulate intelligent aliens seeding the life here on earth.
2009-01-14 05:57:17 UTC
Put it differently. There are thousands of Casinos in the world and every day people draw an ace and a king to get a blackjack, does this change your odds of drawing a blackjack?



It's not just about the amount of worlds. So many things have to be just right and in just the right order for abiogensis to occur assuming it can occur.

The world must be of a size to have enough gravity to hold an atmosphere but not so large that it's gravity crushes the life trying to evolve.

The atmosphere must be in the correct proportions to support life as we know it.

The world must be close enough to it's sun for warmth but no so close that it burns up the protein chains. Observe a frying egg for an example of the change heat does to protein.

Then there must be either volcanic activity or electrical storms depending on which version of abiogensis your accepting.

Don't forget there must be a huge amount of water on the planet.

Plant life has to evolve as well as animal life since plants are part of the cycle that keeps our atmosphere working. Otherwise the gases needed for life would run out.

Now the same violent volcanism or electrical activity that initially forces the inorganic matter to bond into organic matter has to go away since it would kill the emerging life. Particularly the plant life.



Now that you have the conditions for life it still has to occur and go from inorganic matter to an organism that can process sustenance and reproduce. but thats no small point. Your talking about basically carbon and oxygen and hydrogen and nitrogen combining to form something enormously complex that eats and reproduces somehow. Nothing can evolve till life already exist that can reproduce. So this isn't a stages thing. It has to go from gases and carbon to a complete and functional cell because the pieces don't work by themselves. Its about the same as having a forest on a mountain and expecting it to randomly spawn an office building. The basic elements may be there but organizing themselves to that extent is not something we can explain. Sure in an infinite universe of infinite forests, I won't say it can't happen but I wouldn't bet on it either.



All of these things happening on the same world in the right order has got to be at least a bit of a strain to the laws of probability. To be truthful...God is much less of a leap of faith then that is.
2009-01-14 10:05:31 UTC
i actually found a creationist website that claimed the probability of all the necessary things for life occurring on the same planet is LESS THAN zero



they dont seem to take into acount that it is life as we know it

or that space is big so it bound to happen some time

or that we havent got any detailed info on extrasolar planets so we dont know what the odds are



but putting that aside they firm state something that is just plain stupid so bravo to them
Shanna
2009-01-14 05:25:39 UTC
I do not argue that life can appear spontaneously...and since events have proven ( perhaps not yet beyond a shadow of doubt but at least point to the unwavering theory that life can and does exist outside of this particular planet and solar system.... intelligent cognizant life is another thing though.
Jared G
2009-01-14 05:35:59 UTC
I'm not saying its small. I'm saying it is impossible. There. Happy? And your argument is like this saying that the universe is so vast that there is someone on a planet that plays cards and gets 4 aces every hand. And by your own logic if the universe is so vast that why wouldn't there be good enough odds for you that there are the right conditions for a greater being than you to exist that could have possibly created you.
2009-01-14 05:34:33 UTC
I often think that the odds of two particles colliding and the result just so happens to be a perfectly functioning and coinciding universe is impossible. Like, life forms are created that need oxygen to live and guess what? Their atmosphere just happens to be made up of heaps of oxygen! Also, the food chain just so happens to work flawlessly! Seriously, what are the odds? Someone's definitely behind it, and that person is definitely God.
2009-01-14 05:25:58 UTC
Does science look at every single planet for intelligent life? Or do they not waste their time on those they know don't fit the criteria for having life possible on them? If they know the criteria, then the possibilities are reduced tremendously.
neil s
2009-01-14 05:24:47 UTC
The problem is those who say such things are arguing from two steps removed. All we know is that the model produces those numbers, we do not know how those numbers represent the actual universe. This is why scientists, when not speaking to the lay public, are reticent to make ontological claims. The people making those claims are simply numerically illiterate.
no1home2day
2009-01-14 05:33:35 UTC
Actually, it's more than just odds and probability, even though once a probability reaches a small enough value, it is considered to be zero by statisticians.



But scientists who have studied the internal structure of the DNA molecule had to conclude that ID by an Intelligent Designer was the only possible solution to the question of the origin of life in our universe.



One scientist, Dr. Flue (not sure of the spelling, but that's the way it's pronounced), prior to his research, was an avowed atheist who was convinced that evolution was the only possible cause for life.



After his in depth research of the DNA molecule, he had to change his position. He said in an interview that to continue to accept evolution as fact would require "intellectual suicide."



Here are a few facts:

1. The DNA molecule is a highly complex data information storage and retrieval system that makes even the Cray Supercomputer look like child's play by comparison.

2. Information and data is NEVER random, and requires intelligence.

3. The entire cell contains highly complex components that can not be simplified, such as the mitochondria, as one example.

4. When scientists attempted to simplify the cell, the cell disintegrated.

5. Each component within the cell requires the cell membrane surrounding it, without which it crumbles (disintegrates).

6. The cell membrane requires all the internal components to be there, or it, too, disintegrates.



In other words, to simplify a cell would be like trying to simplify your computer:



If you remove any components (RAM, CPU, main board, etc), the computer no longer functions.



If you simplify any internal component (cut the leads to the IC chips, or remove some resistors or coils, etc), again the computer no longer functions.



The only difference is that the individual components of a computer do not disintegrate when you remove them from the computer, whereas the individual components of the cell DO disintegrate when removed from the cell.



All the parts have to be in place, and each part must be fully developed and highly complex before the cell can live.



Last but not least, for evolution to function, there must be a simpler life form that evolved into something more complex, but as I already pointed out, there is nothing "simple" about the cell. Even the simplest single-celled protozoa has all the same internal components, every one of which is highly complex, as any cell in your body.



And, since the amoeba is just as complex as the cells in YOUR body, I must conclude that either YOU are as simple as an amoeba, and you haven't yet developed intelligence yet, or the amoeba is just as complex as you.



You can't have it both ways! Either you are a SIMPLE life form like the amoeba, or the amoeba is complex like you! - no simple life forms from which you can evolve!



In the words of Sherlock Holmes (AKA Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), “When you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”



When we eliminate evolution as a probable cause for life, then ID by an Intelligent Designer (i.e. God) MUST be the truth, no matter HOW improbable YOU think it is!



And if you persist on accepting evolution as the source of life, you have committed intellectual suicide, so says the expert!
2009-01-14 05:24:39 UTC
Intelligent Design is relative by definition. Any one has the right to define it according to their beliefs. Some say by God, some may think by the natural processes of evolution-some theorize by providing logical and intelligent examples. Whose to say that earth is the only planet that sustains life.
2009-01-14 05:21:22 UTC
It's all random, nobody can make claims that life is difficult to create, we do it all the time. On a galactic stage, well the odds of a life giving planet as we know it, a mammal that breathes oxygen, yes is slim to nil. But we have found life in the depths of space already. There are microbes in the dead of space. Just because this life form is not a copy of humanity, does not make it invalid.
Metroguy
2009-01-14 05:22:22 UTC
The chance of life just accidentally happening was estimated by the super computers at Berkley a few years back (given al the parameters science says were needed to be present) at 1 in 1 to the 26th power
The Anti GM VT AM
2009-01-14 07:21:59 UTC
Actually... the abiogenesis argument is dead. We did it, we are god.



Edit: And to the asker, don't get all self righteous. The force is just microscopic bacteria in your blood called midichlorians.
2009-01-14 05:24:43 UTC
I'm right there with you qui-gon.



Have you seen the pictures from Hubble Deep Space?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBV-cXVWFw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjVoUZL0KAI
hasse_john
2009-01-14 05:23:26 UTC
Someone has calculated that the odds of DNA forming itself spontaneously is one chance in 10 to the 143rd power. ('impossible' is generally accepted as one chance in 10 to the 31st or less. Or consider that parts of a cell would need to be created in a reducing atmosphere, (or they would oxidize and be killed) and the whole cell when created would need to be in an oxidizing atmosphere. Once you realize how complex life is, the idea that it happened by accident is a bit absurd.
Mickchaaya
2009-01-14 05:21:32 UTC
the chance of life appearing sontaneously is small on INHABITABLE planets :P. so far, no other inhabitable planets, besides earth, have been found.
Rene
2009-01-14 05:22:08 UTC
Excellent question. You get a star!
2009-01-14 05:20:57 UTC
It's pointless.



We have so little to go by, it's basically impossible to calculate any meaningful probabilities -- not that that will stop IDiots from pulling numbers out of their @sses anyway...
2009-01-14 05:20:47 UTC
great argument... itll fly right over the tops of their heads though...sad...
primoa1970
2009-01-14 05:20:49 UTC
Life doesn't appear spontaneously...........

God creates it





What the Scriptures say remains the truth...........no matter how much you try to refute it


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
Loading...