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leoofno
Skeptic Friend
USA
346 Posts |
 Posted - 06/09/2006 : 13:03:59 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
quote:
Originally posted by leoofno
quote:
Originally posted by Robb
This Link
has an estimate of the probability of this universe occurring. I do not know how the probability was obtained for each parameter though.
Have you looked at that link very carefully? Its pretty weird. To calculate the probability of life on Earth, they include such things as:
quantity of anaeorbic bacteria in the oceans
quantity of aeorbic bacteria in the oceans
quantity, variety, and timing of sulfate-reducing bacteria
quantity, timing, & placement of carbonate-producing animals
And the parameters! I doubt that these are all independent, which is required for what they are doing. I'm also highly skeptical of the relevance of many of them.:
Not to mention that this king of probability argument is totally bogus in the first place. Improbable things happen all the time, and the universe is a mind-bogglingly big place.
Some time ago I posted a comment on a page very much like this. Perhaps it even is this page. It's nice will all references and such. As long as you don't bother really checking out the sources and read what they really tell. Then you find out that several of those references are bogus and/or irrelevant.
Edited to add:
I managed to dig up that thread from the archives.
http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=1867
Here is the link to the "probability of life on earth"
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designss.html
Its interesting how their arguments so often fall flat after just a small amount of examination and checking of sources. I was beginning to think that robb had a chance of figuring that out, but his insistance that God is "the best explanation we have" of the Big Bang makes me wonder. He said mich the same about moral law, saying God is as good an explanation as plausable natural causes because we "cannot observe this happening". How can you possibly believe that unless you simply want it to be so and just don't think about it too much. |
"If you're not terrified, you're not paying attention." Eric Alterman
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2006 : 17:01:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by me
All it would reveal is that under certain conditions, spontaneous formation of life is possible.
quote:
Originally posted by Robb
I agree with the last statement. However, based on this am I safe to assume you cannot see any evidence for a creator in nature?
No. Intelligent design promoters often say that the probability of natural event x is so small, concluding that evolution is impossible. I think that that argument is partly good, it's just that they have build a huge strawman about evolution (e.g. the probability of a cell containing 500 genes arising through chance is too small), making their conclusions invalid. Personally I think that the probability argument can be used to discern created from non-created objects. A "Toledo-Salamanca" sword would be created because the probability of one appearing by chance due to natural processes is far too small. The same thing can not be said about living things, since they are the subject of gradual change through mutations and differential survival. Each individual step in this process is farily probable.
quote:
Originally posted by Robb
Something had to start the process of the big bang, whether natural or supernatural. The best explanation we have is of a creator. It is not proof by any means but put with other observations it is evidence.
Using god to explain the big bang is not an ... explanation. Explanations answer how something was performed. Saying "god did it" is merely an observation - and an unobserved one at that. Scientifically speaking I would say that unobserved observations do not constitute evidence. |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2006 : 18:18:46 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Robb
I disagree. Something had to start the process of the big bang, whether natural or supernatural. The best explanation we have is of a creator. It is not proof by any means but put with other observations it is evidence.
No, you're getting "evidence" mixed up with "explanation." Your logic is entirely circular. Your claim is that since God is the best explanation for the Big Bang, then the Big Bang is evidence for God.quote:
This Link
has an estimate of the probability of this universe occurring. I do not know how the probability was obtained for each parameter though.
And there is the problem. Hugh Ross might know, but my bet is that he's guessing, because to know a probablity, one must take lots of measurements over many samples. Ross (and everyone else) only have a sample size of one: this universe we inhabit.
(Besides which, Ross creates lots and lots of "extra" probabilities out of things that are more properly grouped. All of the stellar and galactic formation "odds" he's invented are all derivative of the mass density of the universe, the law of gravity, the speed of light, and a few other parameters - perhaps ten in all. Ross, instead of calculating - for example - the probability that the speed of light would be 186,000 MPH, or that F = 6.6742×10-11m1m2/r2, instead dumps dozens of 0.1 "odds" into his final number which are all interdependent and so multiplying them is simply wrong.)quote:
Sure I can see this. But it is not any better explanation of the Moral law than God since we cannot observe this happening. I put this with other evidence for God to exist.
Well, since you claim that God is as equally likely an explanation as evolution for this phenomenon, then I'll "put this with other evidence for" natural processes, and that particular point becomes utterly moot and non-diagnostic.quote:
Isn't this recreating life? Don't they have to create life to prove their hypothesis?
Demonstrating that one abiogenesis hypothesis works in the lab doesn't mean that that's what happened on Earth 3.7 billion years ago. We'll never know precisely what happened, but science is all about collecting knowledge so that we can get a good idea of what happened.quote:
The will of the father is for us to be saved. I think the people he is talking about do not believe but are in a religious community for status or other reasons. I am not totally satisfied with this answer though.
Well, that's exactly what we're talking about: how does one reach satisfactory answers for apparent contradictions in the Bible while using nothing but the Bible?quote:
Why would God make it hard to learn the central message of the Bible?
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Evidently, I rock!
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