[snips]
On Sun, 04 May 2008 02:11:36 +0200, ~saba*gracile~ wrote:
>> Mathematical Probabilities
Oh, good goat. Not this tripe again.
>> The next stop would be to delve into the mathematical probabilities
>> that vastly complex organs such as the brain, the eyes, etc., could
>> have developed by themselves.
"By themselves". Yeah, obviously, the brain developed by itself, sitting
in a pond somewhere, until a creationist - that is, a human without a
brain - happened along, tripped and fell such that the brain managed to
end up jammed in their head and thus immediately became intelligent - and
ceased being creationist.
"By themselves". What a crock, and that's *before* examining the rest of
it.
>> inchemistry, wrote: "The statistical probability that organic
>> structures and the most precisely harmonized reactions that typify
>> living organisms would be generated by accident, is zero."(1) That's
>> right - zero!
Correct! Absolutely correct!
Yet for some reason, the creationist retards persist in arguing this very
point - that these things must have come about by accident. You'd think
they'd learn, but then, they are after all, creationists.
Meanwhile, the fans of evolution science, knowing full well that such
things do _not_ come about "by accident" - being, rather, the result of a
long combination of essentially random mutations *combined with*
selection pressure - would never say anything as retarded as suggesting
that these things happen "by accident". Nope, only the creationists spew
stuff that stupid.
Despite this, for some reason, the creationists who realize that such
things *could not* occur "by accident", instead of castigating their
obviously retarded brethren for making such absurd claims, persist in
going after "evolutionists" who never made the claim in the first place.
Well, again, they're creationists - they are not smart people. Thus,
criticizing the group who doesn't make such a claim, while ignoring the
group who does, is perfectly fitting with what we expect from people with
their abilities.
However, for the nonce, let's see what other idiocies are brought up here.
>> Professor Francis Crick, awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of
>>
>> DNA, wrote:
>>
>> An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could
>> only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment
>> to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had
>> to have been satisfied to get it going.(2)
Indeed. Key words being "almost" and "available to us *now*".
To a caveman, a Bic lighter - the ability to produce fire on demand with
just a click - would seem a miracle, based on what _he_ knows _then_. Of
course, we know differently. We know things he doesn't. We know
manufacturing. We know steel and flint and butane. There is no miracle
involved, even though to him, with his knowledge _then_, it would seem a
miracle.
I rather suspect Crick was well aware of this. The creationists who
quote him this way, though, as if suggesting that his comments somehow
imply there _was_ a miracle involved, well, they're creationists, which,
as we've already established, means they're not too smart.
We might note, for example, that in the presence of such a quote, they
appear to be completely unable to process the part about "knowledge
available to us now" and realize that as science progresses, finds more
information, that knowledge available to us _later_ often answers
questions we cannot answer _now_.
This, of course, is well-known to anyone remotely involved with science;
indeed, the whole process of science is largely one of attempting to find
answers to questions which "knowledge available to us now" is
insufficient to provide. Thus, Crick's comments pose no surprises - nor
difficulties - for anyone involved in sciences.
Why, then, do the creationists love quotes such as this? Again, they're
creationists, thus not very smart. In the general case, they tend to
look for all their answers in writings thousands of years old, or newer
ones derived from the ancient sources. The idea there could be _new_
information available, or that there are processes for locating such new
information, are foreign concepts to such people; if a question cannot be
answered _today_, with "knowledge available to us now", then obviously
such questions cannot _ever_ be answered.
This is an obvious defect in the backwards-viewing approach of the
creationists, of their habit of looking to the past rather than examining
the present and seeking future answers.
Fortunately, science is not so limited; it is, as noted, almost entirely
a process of looking forward, of trying to find future answers to current
questions.
What is odd, though, is how the creationists persist in pointing such
quotes at the science-loving folks, rather than at their brethren. While
neither side may be able to answer a given question today, these
challenged folks aim their criticism not at the side which _cannot_
answer the questions, but rather at the side which _can_ but has not yet
done so. Apparently they think it's better not to even ask questions
than to have unanswered questions.
>> The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the
>> chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in
>> (1020)2,000=1040,000, an outrageously small probability that could not
>> be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.(3)
Indeed. Fortunately, however, it is only the creationist retards who
suggest this is how things occurred in the first place. Again, however,
note that for some reason they persist in lobbing this nonsense at the
lovers of science, instead of at the morons in their own ranks who
actually spew such nonsense as suggesting these things happened at random.
>> In terms of complexity, an individual cell is nothing when compared
>> with a system like the mammalian brain. The human brain consists of
>> about ten thousand million nerve cells. Each nerve cell puts out
>> between ten thousand and one hundred thousand connecting fibers by
>> which it makes contact with other nerve cells in the brain. Altogether
>> the total number of connections in the human brain approaches 1015 or a
>> thousand million million. Numbers in the order of 1015 are of course
>> completely beyond comprehension.
Completely beyond comprehension? To a creationist, perhaps, but we've
already established that these are not smart people.
10^15. How can one imagine that? Let's see, if I rolled _one_ ten-sided
die, the probability of a given number coming up are 1 in 10. Rolling
two dice, the probability of whatever result I got are 1 in 100 - that
is, 1 in 10^2.
Hmm. What if I rolled *fifty* ten-sided dice? Hey, I get a result! A
result with a probability of 1 in 10^50. But wait, that's *trivially*
comprehended, despite being some - lemme crank the numbers here a
second... that's 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times
*more* than the supposedly "beyond comprehension" value they're talking
about.
Yes, you read that right; in a matter of seconds, you can see, in action,
the effects of numbers 100 million billion billion billion times larger
than numbers a creationist finds "beyond comprehension". I *did* say
they weren't too smart, didn't I?
>> Imagine an area about half the size of
>> the USA (one million square miles) covered in a forest of trees
>> containing ten thousand trees per square mile. If each tree contained
>> one hundred thousand leaves the total number of leaves in the forest
>> would be 1015, equivalent to the number of connections in the human
>> brain!
Now isn't *that* cute. First they tell us a number is "beyond
comprehension"... then they proceed to give a perfectly good way to
comprehend that very number, without bothering to realize that it makes
their "beyond comprehension" statement a lie. Well, they're creationists
- they're just not too smart - as they keep demonstrating.
> P.S. The number above, which is what atheists rest thier FAITH on ,
> thereby eliminating the need for God....is 10 to the 40,000 th power.
Er, no, that's the *creationist* faith. They're the ones retarded enough
to keep telling us how these things happened "at random". Nobody -
*nobody* - with the remotest comprehension of the science involved would
*ever* suggest such a thing; it is *purely* a creationist argument.
Since you are saying - quite correctly - that to believe such retarded
crap would be a matter of faith - wholly unmaintainable faith, at that -
it follows that the creationists making such arguments really need to re-
think their pet nonsense.
But wait... aren't *you* a creationist? I think you are. Which means
either you're so abysmally stupid as to actually be *making* this "at
random" argument, or so abysmally stupid as to not be able to figure out
that it is your fellow *creationists* who spew such nonsense. Well, hey,
you're a creationist, thus not very smart, right? So I guess we can
understand why you can't figure out who makes such claims; you lack the
mental capacity to tell which side is which.
> Just wanted to make this number clear to all.
That creationists just aren't very smart? Trust me, it's clear to all.
Well, except perhaps to the creationists themselves.
> (Are you certain you
> dont have a personal ulterior motive for not wanting God to be real
> ???).
I'm sorry, you're not being clear. A retarded creationist argument put
forth by retarded creationists has exactly _what_ bearing on someone "not
wanting God t be real"? I would think that - being creationists - they
more or less assume God - or at least a god - to be real. Why would they
_not_ want that? More to the point, if they _didn't_ want that, why
would they adhere to a belief system which more or less requires that
they assume a god to be real?
Nothing of what you say is making much sense. Well, we can understand
that. You're a creationist - which means you just ain't too smart.
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