Chance of man evolving

Infinity said:

To make really look at it from another angle.

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So this is an "amen" thread? Meant to firm up our belief that it couldn't have happened without God?

But the odds dont seem to fase you. Where here so it must be true

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The reason they don't faze me is that God doesn't need probablity to determine his course of action. Evolution is not too hard for God.

Infinity said:

To make YOU really look at it from another angle. But the odds dont seem to fase you. Where here so it must be true. As in, we are here on earth so evolution must be true

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The odds don't faze me in the sense that you cannot give the odds. This is the problem of these arguments both from evolution or anti-evolution sides. You have no way of calculating these a priori probabilities. Any answer you get is based upon data you cannot calculate. You cannot use it to argue for or against evolution or even for or against abiogenesis.

Also you see that little yellow cross up near my name, that should answer one of your other questions.

Mestel said:

Isn't there a forum rule against posting out of context silliness.

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Rule 2 ‘No Trolling’: You will not post anything that disrupts te peace and harmony of this forum.

Example: calling somebody a troll and that includes putting up the troll sign.
- taking lines out of context.

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http://www.christianforums.com/t732865

Infinity said:

Say look, maybe I didnt do the best job in getting the quotes in order to make sense to you. Perhaps what I posted made you mad or something? do you hate facts? Care to comment on what was said. I cant post links yet but go to John Ankerberg site and look up the quotes and see if there are silly

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Ok, I've looked at several of the articles, and yes they are silly.

This a snowjob compiled of various parts of:

throwing around big numbers,
conflating abiogenesis with evolution, and
quote-mining.

With one exception, I did not find the exact quotes you did, but here is that one exception and a couple of others.

In “Algorithms and the Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution” Marcel P. Schutzenberger of
the University of Paris, France, calculated the probability of evolution based on mutation
and natural selection. Like many other noted scientists, he concluded that it was

“not conceivable”
because the probability of a chance process accomplishing this is zero:
… there is no chance (<10-1000) to see this mechanism appear spontaneously and, if
it did, even less for it to remain…. Thus, to conclude, we believe there is a
considerable gap in the neo-Darwinian Theory of evolution, and we believe this gap to
be of such a nature that it cannot be bridged within the current conception of
biology.38

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Notice that Ankerberg introduces this quote as an argument that the probability of evolution is nil. But the quote does not mention evolution. It mentions a mechanism which the author contends, "cannot appear spontaneously" and concludes that the "current conception of biology" cannot deal with this.

So what mechanism is he talking about?
And is he proposing a conception of biology that would be able to deal with it?

We can't know that without going to his original article.

This is selective quoting (and possibly out-of-context quoting) by Ankerberg.

Here is another example:

The Origin of Pre-biological Systems, edited by Sidney W. Fox, states:

A further aspect I should like to discuss is what I call the practice of infinite escape
clauses. I believe we developed this practice to avoid facing the conclusion that the
probability of self-reproducing state is zero. This is what we must conclude from
classical quantum mechanical principles as Wigner demonstrated (1961).

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In the first place look at the date of publication: 1961---over 40 years ago. Does Ankerberg want you to think science has stood still for 40 years?

Second, look at the title of the work: The Origin of Pre-biological Systems

In short, this book is not about evolution at all. It is about the origin of life---a completely different topic.

Finally, it is ironic, that of all people, he should be quoting Sidney Fox---the person who discovered how to generate proto-cells from amino acids.

http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/photos.htm

Finally, let's look at one last quote:

But Harold Morowitz, a Yale University physicist, gave a far more realistic “probability”
for a single bacterium. He calculated the odds of a single bacterium emerging from the
basic building blocks necessary were 1 chance in 10 100,000,000,000.24

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Again, this is abiogenesis (origin of life) that is being discussed, not evolution (origin of species).

But even so, the quote gives no information of Morowitz's assumptions about the process of going from the basic building blocks (amino acids?) to a fully formed bacterium? Does he see this as a one-step process? Or as a 10 step or 50 step or more steps yet process.

His figures are probably right for a one-step process, but who in science is supposing a one-step process? If instead of calculating the probability of a bacterium emerging from the "basic building blocks", he calculated the probability of getting from Fox's proto-cells to a bacterium, would the odds still be so high?

Do be skeptical of secondary sources such as Ankerberg's.

You can only know what the authors of the quotes are really saying if you go to their original work and read it in context.


Finally, remember that the probability of any event which has already occurred is 1. Evolution has occurred, and any math that says it is impossible has to be based on incorrect assumptions.

Late_Cretaceous said:

What were the chances of you being born?

First of all, your parents had to copulate at the time they did, otherwise your mother would not have gotten pregnent. What were the chances that they would do it on the very night she was able to conceive? The chances of that must be 100 to one.

Then there is the sperm. Millions and millions of sperm. Has another sperm fertilized the egg, you would have never been born. Someone else would be there in your place. The chances that the exact right sperm to make you are millions to one.

Yet against all odds you were born.

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2^46:1 That's ~10^14:1

And that's just chromosome possibilities. That doesn't take into account mutations or the possibility of your parents getting together.

Infinity said:

Well any of you please tell me "What are the chances of Evolution happening" Please include the odd's of everything on earth being as they are in regards of Plants/Animals/Weather/ Ect.ect

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Three problems

1. To calculate probabilities, we need good understanding of what we are dealing with. We don't have this level of understanding of the history of life on Earth

2. Things being exactly as they are isn't as important as things fulfilling some sort of criteria. The problem is that one has to decide on a goal or standard before on can make criteria.

3. Even if it turns out to be statistically impossible to have life come on its own, we don't care. If God chose to create life out of nothing, so be it.

The probability of the spontanous self-assembly of a bacterium is irrelevant, seeing as no-one is proposing that that occurred.

In other words, it's yet another straw man.

We should find a use for these strawmen - anyone for archery?

Didaskomenos said:

I do not understand why you posted this here. This is a Christians-only forum, and we all believe that God was behind the formation of the universe. You're preaching to the choir.

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Maybe he's challenging the closet-athiests?

There aren't any here.