Religion. The evolution, creation and everything in between megathread

[cobra]

Read his posts again.
He wasn't talking about evolution, he was talking about the origins of life.
For life to spontaneously come about the right mix of ammino acids needed to combine together through the movements of the ocean.

It is still retarded - assigning probabilities to the unknown and then saying the probability is so small it must be god offers no insight to anything

we have no way of assigning probabilities to life starting and no way to know how many times the probabilities were tested - till we gain an understanding of this any talk is pointless - The scrabble analogy is misleading and would only appeal to ignorant christians with an agenda to push

once again - god can only exist in ignorance - we dont understand how life began so christians exploit this with their ignorant propaganda about how it must be god

[ThaFleastyler]

FFS, are you just mentally incapable of civil discussion or something?!
Or are you actually just an intolerant prick, as your posts suggest?!

"WE MUST NOT HAVE ANY F*CKING DISCUSSION HERE AT ALL!!! ONLY MINE AND RICHARD DAWKINS' F*CKING OPINIONS F*CKING MATTER!!!! ANYONE ELSE GET THE F*CK OUT!!!!!"

Your attitude = fail.

:disappoin

[nick247]

if you do something for infinity there is 100% chance of every possible combination occuring once

you can easily argue that if it is possible in the least for life to occur then, over infinity, life is guaranteed to occur

in the same way if i pour scrabble letters onto a table randomly, an infinite amount of times, i am 100% guaranteed to eventually form not 1 but every possible sentence imaginable

and what annoys cobra is that Christians trot out the "life is so improbable" argument all the time without ever sitting down to actually think about it....they constantly prove they are not critical of their own arguments

[Arnifix]

if you do something for infinity there is 100% chance of every possible combination occuring once

I disagree. If cobra hit on girls for infinity he'd never get laid. snorksnorksnork.

[ThaFleastyler]

if you do something for infinity there is 100% chance of every possible combination occuring once

you can easily argue that if it is possible in the least for life to occur then, over infinity, life is guaranteed to occur

in the same way if i pour scrabble letters onto a table randomly, an infinite amount of times, i am 100% guaranteed to eventually form not 1 but every possible sentence imaginable

Except that it hasn't been infinity yet - its only been 6000 years.


... just kidding

Still, when odds are that it takes something like 126 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 attempts to create a protein at random, and we've only had 4 500 000 000 years to try, it is pretty long odds, am I right?

and what annoys cobra is that Christians trot out the "life is so improbable" argument all the time without ever sitting down to actually think about it....they constantly prove they are not critical of their own arguments

I understand that - but the problem is he then attacks Christians for being retarded, when - in fact - the "life is improbable" argument isn't a Christian argument, its a damn fact. Life is improbable, whether you believe in God or not.

That "life is so improbable" is an unarguable fact ... the difference in opinion is the next part of the sentence.

Not only that, but his reaction this time was particularly annoying, since I made an effort to not bring up God in my first few posts (here, here and here) and just discuss the science.

[Bell]

Yea I think its a valid point, just because the number of stars/galaxies/atoms are hard numbers to comprehend doesn't mean that there aren't things that technically could happen but are so amazingly unlikely even within the universe that they are pretty much impossible.

The rarity of life is still in question, if we manage to find any signs of life anywhere else in our galaxy then we will know life is abundant.
Unless we find out some more information on how life could of first formed it is feasible to say that earth is unique and life here is a freak accident. (or god )

[cobra]

Still, when odds are that it takes something like 126 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 attempts to create a protein at random, and we've only had 4 500 000 000 years to try, it is pretty long odds, am I right?

no you are completely wrong.

What we have is

chance of protein being created at random: unknown probability
Number "attempts" at protein creation: unknown number

expected numbers of life randomly starting = unknown probability * unknown number

Attaching numbers is simply retarded

It is a common tool of christians to attach numbers and mis-use science to confuse and reassure people

it is worrying that you cant seem to understand that the christian who told you this bullshit was being misleading for a propaganda campaign promoting ignorance

the "life is improbable" argument isn't a Christian argument, its a damn fact. Life is improbable, whether you believe in God or not.

life is not improbable, in fact the chance of life is 1 - given that there is life. No-one knows the probability of life so claiming "Life is improbable" as a fact is baseless

Not only that, but his reaction this time was particularly annoying, since I made an effort to not bring up God in my first few posts

yet i saw through your ruse and worked out your hidden agenda?

..just discuss the science.

I have discovered your problem, you have no idea what science is - what you brought up is not science - it was thinly veiled anti-science christian propaganda

[Ngati_Grim]

What we have is

chance of protein being created at random: unknown probability
Number "attempts" at protein creation: unknown number

expected numbers of life randomly starting = unknown probability * unknown number

I was going to comment on this: we don't know (at this point in time) how many 'attempts' at Life there were. There may well have been simultaneous occurrences, false starts, or different 'experiments' using different bases and protein chains etc.


I must also say that I don't find life improbable as we are here. I find it amazing, wonderful, interesting and awe-inspiring at times, but I don't consider it to be improbable.

No cut and paste here lol

[cobra]

I disagree. If cobra hit on girls for infinity he'd never get laid. snorksnorksnork.

luckily I've got science - nothing like rohypnol, a few drops of dating magic....

[philo-sofa]

Except that it hasn't been infinity yet - its only been 6000 years.


... just kidding

Still, when odds are that it takes something like 126 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 attempts to create a protein at random, and we've only had 4 500 000 000 years to try, it is pretty long odds, am I right?

6000 years, you had me worried lol

However - bear this in mind:

1)There would be a lot (a lot of a lot of a lot of lots) of potential protein creation moments every year.

2)That you don't require a protein exactly like ours to do stuff - a lot of different proteins could have formed the basis for a self replicating chemical which sometimes imprefectly replicated and had a structure such that this 'mutation' could affect the chances of its decenents replicating.  

3) TBH life could spring from a lot of things - proteins are an example of one kind of life, but silicon life, for example is a good bet.  There's nothing extraordinary about this particular kind of life, other than that it's alive.


So, I'd contend in this sort of argument we need to restrict the odds to the odds of something kinda awesome and life-ish occuring (and to be fair that is hard enough to work out). Otherwise we'd be doing the statistical equivalent of walking down the street and saying "OMG what are the odds that I would see a yellow '98 VW, a Red '87 Mazda and then a Black '08 Jaguar, one with three people, one with two and the other with just the driver, separated by around 1.3m, 1.4m and 3m respectively!!! It's incredible!!"  i.e. very unlikely but not neccesarily extraordinary  

[ThaFleastyler]

life is not improbable, in fact the chance of life is 1 - given that there is life. No-one knows the probability of life so claiming "Life is improbable" as a fact is baseless

I can understand what you're saying.

Okay, getting away from all the evolution/god issues here, let me ask a simple math question - please answer it as only a math question, not as anything else:

If I roll a dice, mathematically speaking how often should I roll a 6?
About 1 in 6 times right? Around 16.67% of the time?

So if I get a 6 on the first roll, does that change the mathematical odds that rolling a 6 should occur?

[Zarathrustra]

God does not play dice with the universe.

[cobra]

I can understand what you're saying.

Okay, getting away from all the evolution/god issues here, let me ask a simple math question - please answer it as only a math question, not as anything else:

If I roll a dice, mathematically speaking how often should I roll a 6?
About 1 in 6 times right? Around 16.67% of the time?

So if I get a 6 on the first roll, does that change the mathematical odds that rolling a 6 should occur?

given that you already have rolled a 6 then the chance, in that rolling session, that you will get a 6 is 1, or 100%

it will not effect future rolls

[DrMambo]

The rolls are considered independent events. Each time you roll the dice, you have an equal probability of 1/6, that you will roll a 6 (or any other number).
The probability that the dice is a 6, when I'm looking at the dice and it says 6, mathematically speaking, is retarded. It's not really a probability anymore, in the sense that you are talking about, Cobra. It is the outcome of an experiment, and the only probability comes from the probability that your eye is seeing something wrong, or the probability that there is dust on the dice, etc. It is the realization of the earlier probability.

I can understand what you're saying.

Okay, getting away from all the evolution/god issues here, let me ask a simple math question - please answer it as only a math question, not as anything else:

If I roll a dice, mathematically speaking how often should I roll a 6?
About 1 in 6 times right? Around 16.67% of the time?

So if I get a 6 on the first roll, does that change the mathematical odds that rolling a 6 should occur?

[cobra]

The rolls are considered independent events. Each time you roll the dice, you have an equal probability of 1/6, that you will roll a 6 (or any other number).
The probability that the dice is a 6, when I'm looking at the dice and it says 6, mathematically speaking, is retarded. It's not really a probability anymore, in the sense that you are talking about, Cobra. It is the outcome of an experiment, and the only probability comes from the probability that your eye is seeing something wrong, or the probability that there is dust on the dice, etc. It is the realization of the earlier probability.

It is still probability, conditional probability.  The chance that in a dice rolling session that i roll a six given that i have rolled a 6 is 1, and we should give Flea enough credit to use the phrase "future rolls" if that was the situation he wanted to look at.

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

What if the dice was rolled inside a box, where no observer could see it's result?


But the paint of the dots would cause micro shifts in the gravitational field, thus causing everyone effected to because indirected observers, the same way a decomposing dead cat would cause micro shifts in the gravitational field.

[cobra]

What if the dice was rolled inside a box, where no observer could see it's result?


But the paint of the dots would cause micro shifts in the gravitational field, thus causing everyone effected to because indirected observers, the same way a decomposing dead cat would cause micro shifts in the gravitational field.

the result of the dice could be calculated using Newtonian mechanics and thus would not be similar to Schrodingers cat

[DrMambo]

You changed the outcome by observing it!

What if the dice was rolled inside a box, where no observer could see it's result?


But the paint of the dots would cause micro shifts in the gravitational field, thus causing everyone effected to because indirected observers, the same way a decomposing dead cat would cause micro shifts in the gravitational field.

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

the result of the dice could be calculated using Newtonian mechanics and thus would not be similar to Schrodingers cat

No it couldn't, there are far too many unknown variables.

[Iblis]

[video]U6QYDdgP9eg[/video]

[cobra]

No it couldn't, there are far too many unknown variables.

although you are correct in saying that in practice there are too many variables to calculate the result, you are incorrect because the rolling of the dice is entirely Newtonian. the dice in the box is not analogous to schrodingers cat.

The following is from a discussion on a different forum, and i have provide a link if you would like to read through it

he main principle that is relevant here is the principle of superposition. Considering that you did verify my description of your system as identical to flipping a dice or a coin, this then confirms to me that it is not an illustration of superposition. Schrodinger could have easily illustrated this thought experiment by flipping a coin if this were the case. Yet, he chose something else to illustrates the "weirdness" of QM.

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=150364

[cobra]

[video]U6QYDdgP9eg[/video]

cheers for that, very interesting video, i didnt know much about the Theory of Abiogenisis.

can you explain why they never once mentioned scrabble?

[nick247]

Still, when odds are that it takes something like 126 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 attempts to create a protein at random, and we've only had 4 500 000 000 years to try, it is pretty long odds, am I right?

- in fact - the "life is improbable" argument isn't a Christian argument, its a damn fact. Life is improbable, whether you believe in God or not.

.

ouch dude...seriously think about it for a second

we are talking 4500 000 000 years to try and how many seconds/attempts in a day? (actually technically it is less years than that because we assume the initial event happened closer to the begining of our known timeline

but thats on ONE SINGLE PLANET....how big is the universe?

suddenly we have a lot of roles of the dice

probability of 1 event occuring is also a function of how many attempts/ timeframe.

so saying life is improbable based on the percentage chance of it occuring in one single attempt is misleading......as is even saying that it is improbable given a small time frame.....(as i pointed out we have multiple planets/the universe to consider)

so no you cant claim that life occuring is improbable....if life has a single percentage possibility of it occuring and there is near endless attempts then life is PROBABLE to occur EVENTUALLY...SOMEWHERE....

at the VERY LEAST it is not as improbable as the religious make it out to be

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

although you are correct in saying that in practice there are too many variables to calculate the result, you are incorrect because the rolling of the dice is entirely Newtonian. the dice in the box is not analogous to schrodingers cat.

Well I never said it was.

[Ngati_Grim]

Well I never said it was.

I nearly said Schrodinger's Dice!

...only because my mathematics is deficient so I have nothing of value to add here :sly: