The probability that life could occur without the aid of God

Originally posted by twhitehead

Anyone who claims to have worked out an explicit probability for life occurring 'at random' or what they really mean 'without the aid of God', is talking nonsense.
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Does this sentence mean that anyone who claims to have worked out an explicit probability for life occuring 'at random' or 'without the aid of God' is talking nonsense ?

Is that what you mean or do you mean something else ?

What is "explicit probability" meaning here ?
Do you mean a probability formula which is infallibly accurate with no possibility of argumentation on precise numbers?

Is this an assertion that you are going to take the initiative to demonstrate? Or are you only going to sit back and find fault with various minor related ideas to attempt to prove you have some superior education ?

My assertion is that you probably don't understand Evolution.
Or you probably don't want to understand Evolution.

What was the first occurrence of biological natural selection ?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Not sure how you would calculate the probability to start off with. But if smart intelligent scientists cannot use their intelligence to create life in the lab, what makes you think life can create itself without intelligent intervention?

Notice that the challenger will remain in a defensive poster.

He'll make vacuous and provocative grandstand like statements to provoke everyone to talk, while he observes some minute detail to exploit for an error,

Thier talking nonsense.

Look at the biosphere around you. Twhitehead must assert that even for a child to grasp that it could not all be an accident is to believe nonsense.

Originally posted by twhitehead
This keeps coming up so I thought it worthy of its own thread.
Assertion: Anyone who claims to have worked out an explicit probability for life occurring 'at random' or what they really mean 'without the aid of God', is talking nonsense.
Is anyone able to counter this assertion? ie can anyone give a reasonable scenario in which such a probability can be calculation and have useful meaning?

Right, for there to be a statistical likelihood one would first have to observe it actually happening.

Well played.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Not sure how you would calculate the probability to start off with.

My point exactly. So anyone who claims that you can calculate a probability, has their work cut out for them.

But if smart intelligent scientists cannot use their intelligence to create life in the lab, what makes you think life can create itself without intelligent intervention?
As pointed out by others, it has been done.
But where are you going with this. Are you saying that the same argument could be used to prove the sun is not natural? ie since scientists have not created the sun in a lab, it cant have come about naturally?

Originally posted by sonship
Does this sentence mean that anyone who claims to have worked out an explicit probability for life occuring 'at random' or 'without the aid of God' is talking nonsense ?

Yes.

Is that what you mean or do you mean something else ?
Yes, that is what I mean.

What is "explicit probability" meaning here ?
It means putting a figure on the probability.

Do you mean a probability formula which is infallibly accurate with no possibility of argumentation on precise numbers?
No, I mean any probability formula whatsoever that purports to give a result that bears any usefulness in understanding the likelihood that life would arise without the aid of God.

Is this an assertion that you are going to take the initiative to demonstrate?
I could, but I was wondering whether anyone disagreed with it. So far, no takers.

Originally posted by sonship
Notice that the challenger will remain in a defensive poster.

He'll make vacuous and provocative grandstand like statements to provoke everyone to talk, while he observes some minute detail to exploit for an error,

Actually an YouTube video posted by you was part of what prompted this thread. The speaker in the video made some wild claims about the probability of life arising 'at random' without explanation for where he got the figure. You stated your support for the video but refused to discuss it. You later made some very vague statements about how the figures might be off by a couple of orders of magnitude.

It is my assertion that the figures were total utter nonsense and bear no relations whatsoever to the question of life's existence and that the speaker was either being dishonest or is just ignorant of both reality and probability, and the same applies to you for supporting him. I suspect the former given your behaviour after the figures were questioned. In fact your initial response to me made me think you were posting while under the influence it was so incoherent.

Originally posted by whodey
Right, for there to be a statistical likelihood one would first have to observe it actually happening.

Not true.

But if you believe that, then you should agree that the post you made suggesting such probability existed is necessarily false.

Originally posted by twhitehead

No, I mean any probability formula whatsoever that purports to give a result that bears an usefulness in understanding the likelihood that life would arise without the aid of God.
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Is there a reason why in this version you omit "at random" and only state "without the aid of God"?


I could, but I was wondering whether anyone disagreed with it. So far, no takers.
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Have you ever gone to the Science Forum and demonstrated this assertion?
If you have in the Science forum, please link me to the thread where you positively took the initiative to demonstrate your assertion.

Originally posted by sonship
Is there a reason why in this version you omit "at random" and only state "without the aid of God"?

Yes. Tagging on 'at random' seem incoherent to me. What would it even mean in this context?

Have you ever gone to the Science Forum and demonstrated this assertion?
No, nobody in the science forum would dispute it.

If you have in the Science forum, please link me to the thread where you positively took the initiative to demonstrate your assertion.
I haven't.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Life exists, and no evidence for "intelligent intervention" has been found.

Oh yes, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest life can create itself. A prime example is the last time a tornado swept through a junkyard and created a space shuttle.

Originally posted by twhitehead
This keeps coming up so I thought it worthy of its own thread.
Assertion: Anyone who claims to have worked out an explicit probability for life occurring 'at random' or what they really mean 'without the aid of God', is talking nonsense.
Is anyone able to counter this assertion? ie can anyone give a reasonable scenario in which such a probability can be calculation and have useful meaning?

Life could only reasonably be said to arise "at random" if we rely on the many worlds model and argue that among an infinite number of worlds, a world in which there is life must arise by chance, and it is inevitable that we occupy such a world.

However, the relevant scientists do not make that claim. They say life arose when the conditions permitting life arose and those conditions not only existed on earth but also probably exist or have existed or will exist in countless other places around the universe.

The conditions permitting life are those in which there is a significant probablity of life being generated - not a desert in which a random swirl of atoms would accidentally yield such a surprising result.

It is increasingly likely too that there are diverse conditions permitting life, which can take different forms. On earth, the discovery of life forms thriving around methane rich thermal vents deep in the ocean - far from sunlight - supports this proposition. Life is very prolific indeed once the conditions permit life and the fact is, the conditions do permit it.

As regards evolution, that again does not rely on the weak proposition of arbitrary random events, but on the very deterministic and well established principles of natural selection.

Those content to live with their God of the Gaps occupy a smaller and smaller niche, but squeak loudly all the same. Far from being unliikely, life is prolific and almost irrepressible. The very fecundity of this planet ought to make people appreciate what a weak line of argument supports the Creationist deniers.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Lets pretend for a moment they were able to do it.... Wouldn't that support the idea that life came from a form of intelligent intervention?

Not really. It would show that there isn't any "magical ingredient" - so it wouldn't rule any scenario out, without really supporting any either.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Oh yes, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest life can create itself. A prime example is the last time a tornado swept through a junkyard and created a space shuttle.

There is plenty of evidence suggesting that there is life on Earth and plenty of evidence that at one point there wasn't. It stands to reason that it came into being in the interim. And since natural processes are the only ones we can measure we will have to be satisfied with explaining the origins of life through natural processes - or not at all.

Originally posted by twhitehead
My point exactly. So anyone who claims that you can calculate a probability, has their work cut out for them.

[b]But if smart intelligent scientists cannot use their intelligence to create life in the lab, what makes you think life can create itself without intelligent intervention?
As pointed out by others, it has been done.
But where are you go ...[text shortened]... tural? ie since scientists have not created the sun in a lab, it cant have come about naturally?[/b]

Oh yes the sun just magically appeared out of a chemical soup exactly the right distance away from the earth so as not to roast all us all alive. Besides, the energy for the sun has always existed right, as has the universe. But it is preposterous to even image that some Deity has always existed.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Oh yes the sun just magically appeared out of a chemical soup exactly the right distance away from the earth so as not to roast all us all alive.

I know you are an ignorant creationist, but surely not that ignorant?
The sun formed before the earth not after, and is and was largely composed of hydrogen and not so much a 'chemical soup' as an atomic soup.

Besides, the energy for the sun has always existed right, as has the universe.
That depends on what you mean by 'always'. We don't actually know how long the universe has existed, but it seems reasonable to say it has 'always existed' as time is a dimension of the universe

But it is preposterous to even image that some Deity has always existed.
No, it is not preposterous to imagine. It is preposterous to claim that it is so without good reason.