Spontaneous Life Generation in Lab is Impossible

[PsychoSarah]

Fortunately, there are millions capable of completing the mission. If the odds of pregnancy were anywhere near that high we would probably not exist any longer. As for which sperm was me, the answer is "all of them." Each of them carried the building blocks for my existence. I didn't develop a consciousness until much later.

Only 1 sperm had the exact make up that could result in you; the rest would be genetically different and, were they to have fertilized the egg, would have resulted in a different person, perhaps even one of different gender.

 

[mzungu]

Only 1 sperm had the exact make up that could result in you; the rest would be genetically different and, were they to have fertilized the egg, would have resulted in a different person, perhaps even one of different gender.

And God forbid, may have been an atheist too!

 

[RealityCheck]

Fortunately, there are millions capable of completing the mission. If the odds of pregnancy were anywhere near that high we would probably not exist any longer. As for which sperm was me, the answer is "all of them." Each of them carried the building blocks for my existence. I didn't develop a consciousness until much later.

What's fascinating about this is that this is almost precisely the refutation made against creationists who claim that abiogenesis is impossible given the odds. This is the lottery example - the odds of any one person winning the lottery may be 1 in 300 million, but if 300 million people buy lottery tickets the odds that *someone* out of that group will win are pretty high.

 

[ChetSinger]

What's fascinating about this is that this is almost precisely the refutation made against creationists who claim that abiogenesis is impossible given the odds. This is the lottery example - the odds of any one person winning the lottery may be 1 in 300 million, but if 300 million people buy lottery tickets the odds that *someone* out of that group will win are pretty high.

The odds in lotteries are engineered.

 

[Loudmouth]

The odds in lotteries are engineered.

That doesn't even make sense.

At least with a lottery we know what the probabilities are. With abiogenesis, we can't even come close to knowing what the probabilities are. We have no idea what the simplest replicator possible is. We don't know all of the chemical pathways that can lead to that replicator. We don't know the number of planets where these reactions can and have taken place. We don't know the number of times these reactions have taken place.

This is why the creationist claims of impossibilities are so ludicrous. Their claims are built on ignorance.

 

[Michael]

That doesn't even make sense.

It actually does make sense if you look at it from the perspective of it's purpose (profit), and the fact that the lottery is 'engineered' to make them money.

 

[mzungu]

It actually does make sense if you look at it from the perspective of it's purpose (profit), and the fact that the lottery is 'engineered' to make them money.

All it does is dish out less than it has earned. The winners come out with much more than they paid.

 

[Michael]

All it does is dish out less than it has earned. The winners come out with much more than they paid.

The only statistically guaranteed "winner" in the lottery is the creator of the lottery. Most "players" aren't winners either, and only one winner is 'guaranteed' to make money no matter what happens.

 

[Loudmouth]

It actually does make sense if you look at it from the perspective of it's purpose (profit), and the fact that the lottery is 'engineered' to make them money.

The engineering in this sense is the cost of the ticket and the payouts. The only other engineering is in the design of the machine that produces the results, and their success is determined by how close they come to the expected probabilities.

They could just as easily use decaying isotopes as their random process. Would that make radioactive decay an engineered probability? No.

 

[Loudmouth]

The only statistically guaranteed "winner" in the lottery is the creator of the lottery.

That assumes that the payout is less than the money taken in on the sale of the tickets. It has nothing to do with the probability of the lottery itself.

 

[Michael]

That assumes that the payout is less than the money taken in on the sale of the tickets. It has nothing to do with the probability of the lottery itself.

I didn't really intend to nitpick about it. His statement just made sense to me from that perspective at least. It is engineer to make the lottery money no matter who 'else' might be a winner.

 

[Loudmouth]

I didn't really intend to nitpick about it. His statement just made sense to me from that perspective at least. It is engineer to make the lottery money no matter who 'else' might be a winner.

The "It" in the last sentence is not the probability of the lottery. They could take out half the potential numbers in the lottery and their profit could stay the same. That is why "engineered probabilities" makes no sense. It is the ticket prices and payouts that are engineered, not the probabilities.

 

[Michael]

The "It" in the last sentence is not the probability of the lottery. They could take out half the potential numbers in the lottery and their profit could stay the same. That is why "engineered probabilities" makes no sense. It is the ticket prices and payouts that are engineered, not the probabilities.

As you wish. I hear you in terms of verbiage, but it seemed pretty obvious what he meant.

 

[Belk]

As you wish. I hear you in terms of verbiage, but it seemed pretty obvious what he meant.

But even in that sense it does not refute anything. Of course lotteries are engineered to make money. That does not change the underlying statistics of it.

 

[Michael]

But even in that sense it does not refute anything. Of course lotteries are engineered to make money. That does not change the underlying statistics of it.

I wish that I had simply kept my mouth shut.

 

[Loudmouth]

As you wish. I hear you in terms of verbiage, but it seemed pretty obvious what he meant.

That is probably where we diverge. I think we are reading their intent a bit differently. Perhaps the original poster can explain his position a bit more clearly.

 

[ChetSinger]

As you wish. I hear you in terms of verbiage, but it seemed pretty obvious what he meant.

I thought it was, too, but I guess for some folks it wasn't. Here it is:

...This is the lottery example - the odds of any one person winning the lottery may be 1 in 300 million, but if 300 million people buy lottery tickets the odds that *someone* out of that group will win are pretty high.

The odds in lotteries are engineered.

I thought RealityCheck's example wasn't a good one because lotteries are engineered and the outcomes are statistically predictable. Abiogenesis is not engineered, and if a positive outcome is statistically predictable at all, it's remote because the boundaries of the selection space are the age of the universe and the number of atoms contained within it. You can't just "add more people" and make a positive outcome more likely; we've already estimated the age of the universe and the number of atoms it contains.

Hope that clears things up.

 

[Loudmouth]

I thought RealityCheck's example wasn't a good one because lotteries are engineered and the outcomes are statistically predictable.

The outcomes of chemical reactions are also statistically predictable, and that is what we are comparing.

Abiogenesis is not engineered, and if a positive outcome is statistically predictable at all, it's remote because the boundaries of the selection space are the age of the universe and the number of atoms contained within it. You can't just "add more people" and make a positive outcome more likely; we've already estimated the age of the universe and the number of atoms it contains.

Hope that clears things up.

How many possible positive outcomes are there? How many different combinations of atoms can result in life coming from non-life in nature?

 

[Michael]

How many possible positive outcomes are there? How many different combinations of atoms can result in life coming from non-life in nature?

We would also have to factor in things like temperature and various other environmental possibilities. It's not just the atoms within the organism itself that have to be arranged just right, but also the environment itself, including relative stability. I'm not sure how one would even begin to go about computing such odds.

 

[PsychoSarah]

We would also have to factor in things like temperature and various other environmental possibilities. It's not just the atoms within the organism itself that have to be arranged just right, but also the environment itself, including relative stability. I'm not sure how one would even begin to go about computing such odds.

Given the fact that whatever those odds, there is life on earth (proving life can exist), and just the sheer number of other planets that exist, I would say it is more unlikely that life not develop somewhere.

There is this one guy, can't remember the name, that made a formula that accounted for many of these factors to determine the likelihood that other intelligent life was out there that is fairly easy to use. Now they guy that made the equation also determined what he felt to be reasonable numbers to put in it, and came up with 40 or so other intelligent beings on other planets within the Milky Way galaxy should be around right now. Being the skeptic that I am, I inserted extremely less favorable numbers that bordered on pessimistic, and still came up with 2. And that is an equation for intelligent life, not just life.