Re: Earth is unique and just right for humans indicates a divine plan
 

[image]http://trouble.philadelphiaweekly.com/archives/foucault.jpg[image/]

Re: Earth is unique and just right for humans indicates a divine plan
 

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http://trouble.philadelphiaweekly.co...s/foucault.jpg

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becomes

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Re: Earth is unique and just right for humans indicates a divine plan
 

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This is unfair. We have no evidence upon which we can formulate any estimate save that abiogenesis has occured once. Add to this the fact that many evolutionary biologists believe that abiogenesis only occured once on Earth.

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Do you not understand large numbers? If you think the chances of abiogenesis are 0 come out and say it. I'll say it's greater than 0 because it happened once already, and from what we have seen life finds a way. If it isn't 0 then chances are really good that it has happened somewhere else because of the size of the cosmos.

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Do you understand really small numbers? If the lifetime odds for abiogenesis for any given planet are the same as the odds of a unique shuffle of a deck of cards then, universe wide, we're stunningly lucky and likely alone.

There exists only ~10^81 baryons. Not so many when you divide by 10^67.

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First off, I don't understand the last part--what does the number of baryon particles in the universe have to do with this, and what does the second figure (the number of unique shuffles of a 52 card deck, 52 factorial) have to do with this??

Secondly, while I don't know exactly what abiogensis entails (so I can't comment explicitly on it), I do know that in lab experiments which simulate early earth conditions (an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, water and hydrogen), when electricity (read: lightning) was added, much carbon and other organic gas was produced.

I also don't know anything about enzymes or proteins or how they arrange themselves or anything, and I don't know if the whole enzyme/protein arrangement argument (against life happening without god) is even valid in theory. Assuming it is, I would like to ask how often enzymes/proteins arrange themselves in various ways, and how many there were, and if any arrangements might be weighted, or become weighted when formed. This bears significantly on the possibility of that happening.

Re: Earth is unique and just right for humans indicates a divine plan
 

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This is unfair. We have no evidence upon which we can formulate any estimate save that abiogenesis has occured once. Add to this the fact that many evolutionary biologists believe that abiogenesis only occured once on Earth.

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Do you not understand large numbers? If you think the chances of abiogenesis are 0 come out and say it. I'll say it's greater than 0 because it happened once already, and from what we have seen life finds a way. If it isn't 0 then chances are really good that it has happened somewhere else because of the size of the cosmos.

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Do you understand really small numbers? If the lifetime odds for abiogenesis for any given planet are the same as the odds of a unique shuffle of a deck of cards then, universe wide, we're stunningly lucky and likely alone.

There exists only ~10^81 baryons. Not so many when you divide by 10^67.

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Yes I get really tiny numbers, and big numbers win because the really small numbers you are talking about are indistinguishable from zero. So have some guts and say you think the chances of abiogenesis are zero or not.

Re: Earth is unique and just right for humans indicates a divine plan
 

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This is unfair. We have no evidence upon which we can formulate any estimate save that abiogenesis has occured once. Add to this the fact that many evolutionary biologists believe that abiogenesis only occured once on Earth.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you not understand large numbers? If you think the chances of abiogenesis are 0 come out and say it. I'll say it's greater than 0 because it happened once already, and from what we have seen life finds a way. If it isn't 0 then chances are really good that it has happened somewhere else because of the size of the cosmos.

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Do you understand really small numbers? If the lifetime odds for abiogenesis for any given planet are the same as the odds of a unique shuffle of a deck of cards then, universe wide, we're stunningly lucky and likely alone.

There exists only ~10^81 baryons. Not so many when you divide by 10^67.

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Yes I get really tiny numbers, and big numbers win because the really small numbers you are talking about are indistinguishable from zero. So have some guts and say you think the chances of abiogenesis are zero or not.

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Whatever I think, the odds remain the same and as I write this they are unknown.

Re: Earth is unique and just right for humans indicates a divine plan
 

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Yes I get really tiny numbers, and big numbers win because the really small numbers you are talking about are indistinguishable from zero.

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No, they aren't. In fact, given an arbitrarily large universe, these really small probabilities end up approaching 1.

Re: Earth is unique and just right for humans indicates a divine plan
 

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Yes I get really tiny numbers, and big numbers win because the really small numbers you are talking about are indistinguishable from zero.

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No, they aren't. In fact, given an arbitrarily large universe, these really small probabilities end up approaching 1.

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Yup, that was the point of the exchange. It seems like InTheDark is trying to set the chance so low as to be zero, I called him on it, and he still won't come out and say that he doesn't believe in abiogenisis. Probably because he doesn't want to commit to how life started here.

Re: Earth is unique and just right for humans indicates a divine plan
 

Well, right. He initially said epsilon, which ruins his credibility. Although, if we accept the Many Worlds interpretation life is an inevitability even if the probability is that small! Actually, when talking about probability I'm pretty sure "epsilon" is meaningless. If there's an infinitely greater chance of this than of that, I think that has a 0 probability (even when that is possible).

It's nonsensical for abiogenesis to be impossible.

Re: Earth is unique and just right for humans indicates a divine plan
 

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Earth is unique and just right for humans indicates evolution

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Fixed your thread title.

Re: Earth is unique and just right for humans indicates a divine plan
 

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Has Midge ever made a post that did not contain a smiley and an exclamation point! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Probably not. But this is the first one I've read that didn't explicitly mention that Bush is a moron or that USAians are rednecks. He's getting a little more subtle, which kinda scares me.