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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
 Posted - 01/11/2010 : 02:53:20
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I'm tired of having this argument, essentially arguing against the idea that the universe is too unlikely to have occurred randomly. Please help me refine this argument so I can use it better =). It's not an original argument (the last paragraph is really the argument), I just made a concrete example with cards to make it more understandable to random creationists.
Creationist: The way this universe works is far too specialized and intricate to be completely random.
Me: This draws into question what we mean by randomness and probability with regard to events that have already occurred. Lets do a little experiment. I have a deck of cards here, I'll deal myself 3 poker hands of 5 cards each, shuffling the deck between each one, here's what I get:
8 Hearts, 5 Spades, J Spades, 4 Diamonds, Q Spades
J Spades, 3 Clubs, J Clubs, 5 Hearts, 6 Spades
K Spades, 4 Hearts, 4 Diamonds, 8 Clubs, 9 Clubs
Nothing spectacular, yet each poker hand is unique and there are 2,598,960 possible hands of 5 cards from a 52-card deck.
The probability of getting hand 1? 1/2,598,960
The probability of getting hand 2? 1/2,598,960
The probability of getting hand 3? 1/2,598,960
The probability that I get hands 1, 2, and 3 in a row as I just did? 1/17,554,917,235,355,136,000. Now that's 0.00000000000000000005696 (that's 19 zeros). So this thing that just occurred, me getting these 3 hands of cards was astronomically unlikely, but we would not attribute this to divine intervention. If this isn't enough, deal me 100 poker hands, the probability will be 1/(2,598,960)^100 (that's 0.000000...0003 with 641 zeros), it still doesn't require a divine explanation.
The occurrence of something extremely unlikely cannot in itself be enough to justify an appeal to supernatural phenomena. Saying that it is too unlikely that the universe could have developed randomly is like saying it is too unlikely that I could have gotten these poker hands randomly.
Even if something is random, some series of events must occur, and the probability of every possible series of events must be minuscule as there is an infinite number of events with nonzero probability in the series.
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"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2010 : 05:13:14 [Permalink]
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Creationist: The way this universe works is far too specialized and intricate to be completely random.
Me: Who says it's random?
At least, I've never received a good answer to that question. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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The Rat
SFN Regular
Canada
1370 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2010 : 07:13:56 [Permalink]
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Creationists make one fatal error that even the worst cop shows don't - they begin at the beginning. All investigation must begin now, and follow the evidence trail back through time. We look around at our world and our universe and, even though we have a long way to go, we see natural events with natural causes. We can go all the way back to a few seconds or less after the Big bang, and soon we will get even closer. Everything back to that point has been natural, so why should we throw up our hands now and say "We can't explain it, there must be a god!"
Don't fall into their trap of trying to explain the probability or improbability of the universe arising, tell them to follow the evidence trail starting here and now.
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Bailey's second law; There is no relationship between the three virtues of intelligence, education, and wisdom.
You fiend! Never have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded perversity! Have you ever considered a career in the Church? - The Bishop of Bath and Wells, Blackadder II
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2010 : 11:31:51 [Permalink]
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There are essentially two ways the improbability argument for the existence of the universe could work for the creationists.
1. They could show it deductively. What they can't do is claiming that something is too improbable, therefore God (or anything else). This is simply illogical. The occurrence of an improbable observation simply means that the observation was improbable.
There are instances when they really do make deductive claims. Such as: all events apart from supernatural miracles have a natural cause. The universe did not have a natural cause. Therefore the the cause of the universe was supernatural. The premises for this sort of conclusion is, of course, crud.
2. They could show why their own hypothesis (i.e. God) is more likely than the alternative (randomness [and as Dave pointed out, they should also justify why it is random]). To do this they would have to estimate the probability of the existence of God and it's ability to create the universe. I have never seen this done. Presumably, they simply assume this probability to be very high.
I wasn't really assaulting your argument, was I? |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2010 : 12:55:20 [Permalink]
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Machi4velli.....
It seems to me that the meaning of "random" must be examined in order to respond to a creationist statement that the universe did not occur in a random manner.
Webster International:1. lacking or seeming to lack a regular plan, purpose, or pattern.
2. marked by absence of bias.
random stresses lack of definite aim, fixed goal, regular procedure, or predictable incidence. |
Oxford English:| Having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard. |
Wikipedia:Governed by or involving equal chances for each of the actual or hypothetical members of a population; (also) produced or obtained by such a process, and therefore unpredictable in detail.
Closely connected, therefore, with the concepts of chance, probability, and information entropy, randomness implies a lack of predictability. |
So, at this point in a debate, the skeptic could take the position that the Science-based position on the origins and evolution of the Universe is certainly not that it was and continues to be a random process - actually, the exact opposite, predictability being the never-ending goal of all scientific investigation.
Consequently, Dave's point may be well taken. Probably, no scientist nor atheist would maintain that the Universe occurred as a random event, or continues, in it's development, as a series of random events.
However, Wiki continues: | More formally, in statistics, a random process is a repeating process whose outcomes follow no describable deterministic pattern, but follow a probability distribution, such that the relative probability of the occurrence of each outcome can be approximated or calculated. |
So, alternately, if one wanted to accept the "random" nature of the Universe's origination and evolution, the skeptic could argue that the role of Science is to strive to reach explanations of natural phenomena having the highest statistical probability - with 100% probability being the unattainable goal, but pragmatic "fact" or "truth" being acceptable at something above 90% to 99% probability.
Also, from the above definitions:
Lacking or seeming to lack a regular plan, purpose, or pattern.
Random stresses lack of definite aim, fixed goal, regular procedure, or predictable incidence.
Having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard. |
So it appears that the use of the word random quickly evokes a response from the Creationist to the effect that a Universe defined as random is de facto without purpose, aim, or guidance; all of which can be properly rebutted by the simple response "Exactly!" What is the logical, epistemological, or ontological requirement for "purpose" to be an essential part of existence?
Further exchanges down this path lead to the necessity of much more semantic definition - what is purpose, etc. Suffice to say, a creationist stating that the Universe must have "purpose" does not make it so! Let's hear a compelling definition of "purpose" before conceding to the necessity for Divinity as it's author!
A caveat may be needed here to the effect that the Universe certainly appears to be headed in a certain, probably predictable, direction; but there is no reason to assume that that direction is guided by some supernatural force such as a God. It is merely the inevitable result of a combination of precedent conditions that occurred and occur without the necessity of "purpose"
Incidentally, Machi4velli, I like your poker hand explanation of the probability of historical events. In retrospect (what else, in examining history?), all historical events have a 100% probability of having occurred. But no future events can possibly have more than a 99.999(+ad infinitum)% probability of happening. And very few approach that degree of certainty.
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2010 : 13:27:07 [Permalink]
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| Aw come on, I can't predict the fusion of two hydrogen atoms with 100% probability at some point in the future of the universe?! JK, I am well aware of the SUV-pooping Omni-unicorn's distain for fusion and his desire to quelch all matter from existance. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2010 : 16:51:37 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Machi4velli
The probability of getting hand 1? 1/2,598,960
The probability of getting hand 2? 1/2,598,960
The probability of getting hand 3? 1/2,598,960
The probability that I get hands 1, 2, and 3 in a row as I just did? 1/17,554,917,235,355,136,000. Now that's 0.00000000000000000005696 (that's 19 zeros). So this thing that just occurred, me getting these 3 hands of cards was astronomically unlikely, but we would not attribute this to divine intervention. If this isn't enough, deal me 100 poker hands, the probability will be 1/(2,598,960)^100 (that's 0.000000...0003 with 641 zeros), it still doesn't require a divine explanation. |
Isn't the problem with the creationist argument that they assume that the universe as it is right now is particularly special? Yes, the odds of me rolling 10 6's in a row on a 6-sided die is particularly unlikely. But so are the odds of me rolling in 3, 4, 1, 5, 2, 6, 5, 2, 3, 1 in that order. But because we've assigned some value to the first ("Oooh! All 6's 10 times in a row!"), and and no value to the second, we think that the first is impressive and the second is worthless.
Once you walk around saying that the universe as it is now and exactly as its evolved over time is particularly special, then it would seem like an amazingly non-random event that must have been guided by the sky-god Yahweh. But you'd have to demonstrate somehow that this universe is particularly special and I'm not sure how one would do that (without simply quoting scripture attributed to said sky-god). |
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2010 : 19:00:54 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Cuneiformist
Isn't the problem with the creationist argument that they assume that the universe as it is right now is particularly special? Yes, the odds of me rolling 10 6's in a row on a 6-sided die is particularly unlikely. But so are the odds of me rolling in 3, 4, 1, 5, 2, 6, 5, 2, 3, 1 in that order. But because we've assigned some value to the first ("Oooh! All 6's 10 times in a row!"), and and no value to the second, we think that the first is impressive and the second is worthless. |
Yes, this is part of the point. In fact, before rolling the 10 dice, there was a probability of 1 that some event with a probability of 1/6^10 was going to occur. Whether the event is {1, 3, 4, 5, 1, 3, 2, 6, 5, 4} or {6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6} is irrelevant, each had an equal probability.
The probability of all of the events that led to the current state of the universe occurring as they did must be unimaginably small as well (assuming there exist events that are not deterministic, and I think we have no valid reason to assume all events are deterministic), but any set of events that could lead to any possible universe would likewise have to be unimaginably small. Therefore, we could never possibly infer anything regarding a creator from any of this information.
Suggesting that the manifestation of our universe is too improbable to have occurred without direction of God is exactly analogous to saying that the chance of my getting {1, 3, 4, 5, 1, 3, 2, 6, 5, 4} is likewise too improbable. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
| Edited by - Machi4velli on 01/11/2010 19:08:19 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2010 : 21:26:46 [Permalink]
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Any random arrangement of 97 items (pick 97 distinct items, then lay them out in a row, randomly) has odds of occurring less than one time in 10150, which is William Dembski's "Universal Probability Boundary." The UPB is the probability level at or below which Dembski insists that we assign "design" instead of "chance," because even if we use all the atoms in the universe and all the time since the Big Bang, the chance that anything with odds at or below the UPB will have occurred by now are themselves really, really tiny.
Of course, since anyone can stuff 97 numbered ping-pong balls in a bag, shake the bag for a while and then line the balls up and thus create an arrangement below the UPB in under ten minutes, Dembski's UPB utterly fails as an hypothesis. So he was forced to add, ad hoc, concepts like "specified complexity" (which have never been applied to any real-life situation) to try to save ID by claiming that some arrangements are more special than others (that 1 through 97 in order is less likely than 3, 64, 29, 34, 6, 92, etc. - Cune's idea that all sixes is "different").
But nobody's ever said how some arrangements are "more special" than others, so it's really irrelevant. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Assault my argument please
