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Opening Arguments

Improbable but true

John Popp, in his guest column taking on the "evolution establishment," makes a common mistake in talking about probability:

Part of the massive effort to silence the Grantsburg School District was a letter from the Wisconsin academic community friendly to evolution, asking the Grantsburg School Board to rescind its policy and teach only evolution, with 321 professors and academicians as signatories. Most of them are biologists, historians, anthropologists, philosophers and zoologists, but no mathematicians, although there were two professors with statistical disciplines. Perhaps if this group had canvassed more mathematicians, they would have learned that the statistical odds of evolution are not very good. In 1981, Sir Fred Hoyle, famous British mathematician and astronomer who originated the steady-state theory of nucleogenesis, calculated the probability of life originating by random processes was one chance in 10 to the 40,000th power

Posted in: Religion

Comments

Kenn Gividen
Tue, 01/30/2007 - 5:26am

Creationists provide a valid service in that they offer critiques of the evolution model that would otherwise not occur.

Here is a link to detailed estimations provided by Dr. Hugh Ross, a creationist-astrophysicist.

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design_evidences/200404_probabilities_for_life_on_earth.shtml

Bob G.
Tue, 01/30/2007 - 6:23am

I "probably" would agree with that...lemme flip a coin and get back to 'ya!

;)

Mitchell
Tue, 01/30/2007 - 6:54am

Flat Earthers provide a valid service in that they offer critiques of the round planet model that would otherwise not occur.

http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm

Same thing, no?

Craig Pennington
Tue, 01/30/2007 - 8:42am

The problem is not merely Hoyle's "after the fact" probability estimate -- his before-the-fact probability calculation is based on "life originating by random processes." Chemistry is not random. Thus the model used by Hoyle in his computation is not a model that anyone really proposes as a candidate for any chemical process, let alone abiogenesis. Additionaly, regardless of what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous character proposed regarding the solution to a mystery, one should never assume that one has enumerated all possible scenarios. Positing a supernatural cause for an observed phenomenon in the (perhaps temporary) absence of a natural explanation has never led to useful knowledge. I see no reason to expect anything more from "Intelligent Design" than from the "Bearded Hammerer" theory of thunder.

Kenn Gividen
Tue, 01/30/2007 - 1:50pm

"Flat Earthers provide a valid service in that they offer critiques of the round planet model that would otherwise not occur.

http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm

Same thing, no?"

No

Creationists find glitches in the evolution model that would otherwise be overlooked. I know of no glitches exposed by flat-earthers.

Anology: You try a door-knob to be sure th door is locked. If it's locked, nothing is lost. If you discover it's opened, the you lock it. Either way the effort is worth while.

Let 'em have a look. If the evolution model is air tight, then the door is locked. But if there is a crack in their model, what's to hurt in exposing it?

Craig Pennington
Tue, 01/30/2007 - 2:18pm

"Creationists find glitches in the evolution model that would otherwise be overlooked. I know of no glitches exposed by flat-earthers."

I know of no "glitch" in any evolution model that has been exposed by any creationist (at least not in the past 100 years.) Did you have an example in mind?

Steve Towsley
Tue, 01/30/2007 - 3:17pm

Come on, guys. If there had been more mathematicians in the mix, the same answer would have been produced.

Now, perhaps you meant to say that if there had been more odds-makers in the group, they'd have come up with more favorable creationist statistics. But mathematicians are hard scientists, and they would not have been taken in by exhortations to figure the odds rather than calculate the facts and the evidence produced by archeology, anthropology, history, and the rest of the relevant sciences.

Trying to base any science on a matter that can only be weighed by faith is like trying to become a scientist after being taught that 1+1=3, that 3+2=4, and so on.

You may claim that Darwin is merely a scientific theory (since we have no TV window to prove the rise of man in pre-history), but then how much less weight you must give the story of creationism, in terms of the lack of impirical evidence in our physical, measurable world.

You can't make good scientists by banning what is known of science. Question it, test it, research it, improve it, but never force anyone to close their minds because the textbooks don't square with religious belief. If you do that, you open a can of worms which must include all the holy books, from Bible to Koran to you-name-it.

Do you really want to be responsible for mixing science and matters of personal faith to that inevitable, international extent? I doubt it. Most people who object to evolution foolishly assume that the Christian Bible will become the replacement, the new standard for the sciences.

I don't think it is possible to overstate the size of that mistake.

Kenn Gividen
Tue, 01/30/2007 - 5:47pm

"Did you have an example in mind?"

In debate that's called "rope a dope."

Nonetheless, here's one for the sake of discussion:

Irreducible complexity.

Jeff Pruitt
Tue, 01/30/2007 - 8:17pm

Oh please.

That's not even worthy of discussion...

Craig Pennington
Wed, 01/31/2007 - 2:36am

"In debate that's called 'rope a dope.'"

It would only be rope-a-dope if there were validity to your original claim that there were glitches in the theory of evolution brought up by creationists that would otherwise be overlooked. And while I honestly know of no examples, I am not so arrogant as to assume that I am aware of every creationist claim ever made.

"[I]rreducible complexity."

Except that this is only a glitch in a naive understanding of evolution, not a glitch in any modern theory of evolution. Specifically irreducible complexity ignores the facts, well known before Behe penned his book, that evolution can remove as well as add features (allowing for "construction scaffolding") and that the current function of an evolved system does not preclude a different historical function of a predecessor system (called exaptation) and that a given system can have multiple concurrent functions (in the case of some bacterial flagella, they both move the bacterium and transport substances across the cell wall.)

Now if you meant to imply that creationism has influenced some people to look into a topic than otherwise would have -- in the case of irreducible complexity, made people more aware of type three secretory systems and bacterial flagella -- I'd agree. But the answers to creationist challenges, in my experience, have always predated those challenges.

Steve Towsley
Wed, 01/31/2007 - 9:58am

>...the ANSWERS to creationist challenges, in
>my experience, have always predated those
>challenges.

Very good. Sadly, arguments are usually trumped up by people who consciously decide to ignore proved scientific answers.

And I say again, the trouble with assuming that people will accept one's personal favorite religious revisions to science is that the people affected -- whether they be professors, students or researchers -- will become duty-bound to consider the merits of all religious documents and dogmas with equal gravity.

What ignorance would it be to maintain that only the Biblical version of anti-evolutionary science would be considered, let alone believed?!

Consider the Buddhists, and Nirvana, and Good, for example. Consider the Shao-Lin of Tibet. Consider the devout of Islam. The Book of Mormon.

Then tell me it's a good idea to subordinate the sciences to religion. You'd have to legislate the Christian Bible as the only "true" religious science. And then you're in a world of trouble.

roach
Wed, 01/31/2007 - 10:44am

kooks like popp are the reason I buy Wonder Bread.
quit shopping with nutjobs, and they will go away. my piece of bread is flat, just like the earth. and as mick jagger once sang "I'm a monkey".
I suggest we buy the perfection bread co, by declaring it blighted, and using eminent domain to build another tax-payer financed developer feast. maybe a nice parking lot, so everybody can park, and shop, and live downtown... right. asif....
besides, isnt all the bread flavored exhaust from the bakery an ozone hazard? Move the perfection bakery, and the sunbeam bimbo somewhere else- maybe to one of the dozens of vacant "turnkey" industrial sites all over town- free up that downtown development space..
If you bilk it, they wont come anyway, so there...

Kenn Gividen
Wed, 01/31/2007 - 1:43pm

"Consider the Buddhists, and Nirvana, and Good, for example. Consider the Shao-Lin of Tibet. Consider the devout of Islam. The Book of Mormon."

Creationists disagree among themselves. Old-earth creationism seems to be gaining ground over the six-day tradition. Then, again, evolutionists disagree among themselves on certain variables.

tim zank
Wed, 01/31/2007 - 3:37pm

Now that's the roach I'm used to.

JR
Mon, 02/19/2007 - 9:25pm

why is it called the THEORY of evolution? could it be because it is unproven and unprovable. You can be a monkeys uncle if you desire but, I am a child of the King and He created all of us, how HE did it can be studied and speculated on until you die then you will know, I hope that it will not be to late for you at that time.

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