cards and statistics - The Card Canard
It happens every time that I post a fairly long and precise article that has anything to do with statistics. There will be those who present the old canard concerning cards. Hey, the Card Canard!
Yes, if you take five decks of cards and shuffle them thoroughly then you will have 260 cards in a random order and the odds against that order having occurred will be about 1 in 10^80 or so, which is therefore a statistical impossibilty? Of course not, says the evolutionist, and walks away thinking his point has been made. It does make one think, eh? Eh?
Trouble is, cards do not have to be in any particular order to be cards. But, in order to exist, if it was necessary for the decks to fall in numerical order, by suit, for them to be cards and would otherwise just become a pile of dust, then shuffling cards would, statistically, always be expected to turn them into that pile of dust.
You take a frog and put it in a blender, and after a three minute period of blending you then pour it out onto a plate. What are the odds that it will still be a frog? According to the Card Canard, you could still have a frog there. Do you get it yet? Living organisms are not just a random jumble, but have very specific orders to their structure and systems.
In yesterday's post, all possible proteins (10^52) were given all possible time (10^18 seconds) to attempt to form a self-replicating organism, a simpler one than is found in existence today. In the end, the odds against life forming were only 1 in 10^8196 or so. Now you can do the same math with slightly differing assumptions but you always get a number that supports what Pasteur thought he had proven back in the 1800's, that is, the Law of Biogenesis, that life only comes from life.
Strawman or Elephant?
Herein is the problem for the so-called "reality-based" scientific community (does that sound anything like the Democratic Underground and their 'reality-based' political philosophies at all??? Wink-wink-nudge-nudge!) The problem is that if you are a materialistic and naturalistic scientist who will not look beyond five senses to attempt to explain life, you are faced with a massive problem - Where did life come from? Evolutionists make the attempt to wall that question off from the supposed evolution of all living things from one simple progenitor organism but since they are naturalistic and materialistic it remains the elephant in the room.
Again, evolutionists attempt to label this a strawman, and they will do that rather than attempt to explain away the daunting math involved (darned evidence, anyway!) and the long line of failed experiments by researchers doing everything but sending away for mail-order brine shrimp while trying to find set of circumstances in which life arises from non-life. Hey, if you can get the grant money and it feeds the bulldog.....?
You can call it a strawman and I will call it the elephant in the room.
Of course there are evolutionists who believe God created simple life and then used evolution to bring about the modern life we see today. This is philosophically difficult to defend but for those who believe in God and think that evolution has somehow been proven, a logical fallback position. It is a blend of natural and supernatural, faith and supposition, that is not necessary at all. Evolution has always been championed by people who prefer not to consider the concept of God and that includes the forefathers of the Darwinist movement and from all I can see the majority of evolutionary scientists today. Was God capable of creating Bacteria but not the Bison? Could He come up with the Trilobite but balked at the Termite?
Next questions for evolutionists
Computing the odds against all of life today having evolved from one simple organism is much like computing the odds against life forming from non-life. I want to give evolutionists a chance to set some boundaries here, so the questions come forth:
1) How long is it reasonable to give life to evolve on Earth? If we suppose that life evolves from non-life immediately (which I think looks unlikely to say the least) then how much time do we give evolution to produce an animal as complex as the horse?
2) How many billions of cells/components shall we assign to the now-famous horse?
3) How many mutations, out of all mutations, are favorable on the average?
4) How many different kinds of organisms are there in existence? Oops, I forgot, evolutionists don't use that term. There are often many species within one kind, so perhaps let us ask how many genus have been determined to be in existence? Okay, that will work in a general way.
Oh, if you are a creationist you can put in your two cents as well. Remember, if you don't give me the parameters I will have to use my own!
Cheers!!!
Yes, if you take five decks of cards and shuffle them thoroughly then you will have 260 cards in a random order and the odds against that order having occurred will be about 1 in 10^80 or so, which is therefore a statistical impossibilty? Of course not, says the evolutionist, and walks away thinking his point has been made. It does make one think, eh? Eh?
Trouble is, cards do not have to be in any particular order to be cards. But, in order to exist, if it was necessary for the decks to fall in numerical order, by suit, for them to be cards and would otherwise just become a pile of dust, then shuffling cards would, statistically, always be expected to turn them into that pile of dust.
You take a frog and put it in a blender, and after a three minute period of blending you then pour it out onto a plate. What are the odds that it will still be a frog? According to the Card Canard, you could still have a frog there. Do you get it yet? Living organisms are not just a random jumble, but have very specific orders to their structure and systems.
In yesterday's post, all possible proteins (10^52) were given all possible time (10^18 seconds) to attempt to form a self-replicating organism, a simpler one than is found in existence today. In the end, the odds against life forming were only 1 in 10^8196 or so. Now you can do the same math with slightly differing assumptions but you always get a number that supports what Pasteur thought he had proven back in the 1800's, that is, the Law of Biogenesis, that life only comes from life.
Strawman or Elephant?
Herein is the problem for the so-called "reality-based" scientific community (does that sound anything like the Democratic Underground and their 'reality-based' political philosophies at all??? Wink-wink-nudge-nudge!) The problem is that if you are a materialistic and naturalistic scientist who will not look beyond five senses to attempt to explain life, you are faced with a massive problem - Where did life come from? Evolutionists make the attempt to wall that question off from the supposed evolution of all living things from one simple progenitor organism but since they are naturalistic and materialistic it remains the elephant in the room.
Again, evolutionists attempt to label this a strawman, and they will do that rather than attempt to explain away the daunting math involved (darned evidence, anyway!) and the long line of failed experiments by researchers doing everything but sending away for mail-order brine shrimp while trying to find set of circumstances in which life arises from non-life. Hey, if you can get the grant money and it feeds the bulldog.....?
You can call it a strawman and I will call it the elephant in the room.
Of course there are evolutionists who believe God created simple life and then used evolution to bring about the modern life we see today. This is philosophically difficult to defend but for those who believe in God and think that evolution has somehow been proven, a logical fallback position. It is a blend of natural and supernatural, faith and supposition, that is not necessary at all. Evolution has always been championed by people who prefer not to consider the concept of God and that includes the forefathers of the Darwinist movement and from all I can see the majority of evolutionary scientists today. Was God capable of creating Bacteria but not the Bison? Could He come up with the Trilobite but balked at the Termite?
Next questions for evolutionists
Computing the odds against all of life today having evolved from one simple organism is much like computing the odds against life forming from non-life. I want to give evolutionists a chance to set some boundaries here, so the questions come forth:
1) How long is it reasonable to give life to evolve on Earth? If we suppose that life evolves from non-life immediately (which I think looks unlikely to say the least) then how much time do we give evolution to produce an animal as complex as the horse?
2) How many billions of cells/components shall we assign to the now-famous horse?
3) How many mutations, out of all mutations, are favorable on the average?
4) How many different kinds of organisms are there in existence? Oops, I forgot, evolutionists don't use that term. There are often many species within one kind, so perhaps let us ask how many genus have been determined to be in existence? Okay, that will work in a general way.
Oh, if you are a creationist you can put in your two cents as well. Remember, if you don't give me the parameters I will have to use my own!
Cheers!!!