Summations Only

But Fred Hoyle said it, therefore it must be true!

Also applicable to this is ...

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3. You ignore scientific concepts like cause and effect, and you don't realize that a closed system can be defined however the observer wants, so you throw out technological phrases to try to ignore the implications of thermodynamics by saying the laws of physics are not set in stone.

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Atheists ignore scientific concepts? Really? A closed system can be defined however the observer wants? Does that mean that I can ignore the universe by declaring myself a 'closed system'? Hard to add to that aside from the point that it is creationists ignoring the mathematics and principles of statistics here. It is creationists throwing out technological sounding statistics with no substance.It's like an ad telling you that a shampoo uses quasi-teflon nanoflex to make your hair look 85% healthier. It's just bullshit marketing to the masses - not science.Edited by Warthog, : No reason given.

I should have said more in my previous post, which was to show that there was a scientist who made a calculation similar to the one Chuck referred to.
For my part, Subbie, I am always ready to learn. I have been on a path with many similarities to Merle Hertzler, though I have not hosted a web site(!) I have gone from YEC to accepting long age for Earth and life, thanks in part to Zendeist's Correlations thread and other threads, and should call myself agnostic. I am currently working my way through Merle's site.

Item 5 on Chuck's list:

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5. You laugh at the Supernatural, even though scientists have calculated the odds of life forming by natural processes to be estimated less than 1 chance in 10 to the 40,ooo power — But you find nothing wrong with believing that billions of years full of random mutations would result in the impossible.
  —Chuck77

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I should have said more in my previous post, which was to show that there was a scientist who made a calculation similar to the one Chuck referred to.
  —Pollux

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Not similar. The same. This was the exact same "calculation" Chuck referred to.Anybody can make a statement. Anybody can write down any number and call it a calculation. The catch is to demonstrate that calculation. Please provide us with the calculation.

Remember, evolution and Christianity are very compatible. Accepting that Evolution happened, that the Earth is old, that the Theory of Evolution explains the diversity seen today and that man is just another Great Ape does not mean that you must abandon Christianity or GOD.The christianity marketed by the CCoI is as false a strawman caricature of Christianity as the strawman examples of Evolution they try to market. Simply abandon the god and christianity they try to market just as you abandon all the other silly ideas like crocaducks and a mouse giving birth to a bird.

I'm always willing to credit someone who says this, at least at the beginning. This, now, is your opportunity to prove that you are indeed ready to learn.As others have remarked here, Hoyle's calculation says nothing about the real world, it's irrelevant. If if calculates anything accurately, and I'm not sure it does, at most it calculates the odds of those unnamed 2000 proteins coming together all at one time out of some unnamed set of constituent parts. Since nobody on the planet thinks that's what happened, his calculation couldn't be more meaningless.If you understand that point, as well as other points that others have raised here, you should acknowledge that and agree that the calculation is meaningless. If you don't understand it, you should ask more questions and we'll answer them for you. If you either understand the point but continue to press the relevance of the Hoyle calculation, or don't understand the point and continue to press the relevance of the Hoyle calculation, we'll know you're not really interested in learning.The ball's in your court.

The problem is that scientist never demonstrated that the origin of life even required a single protein, much less 200 of them, or even 2. For all we know, the origin of life required RNA and lipids only with no protein needed at any point.If short proteins were involved, we also don't know what combination of proteins or sequences were required, so even then Hoyle's calculations for a specific set of proteins is based on nothing.To use an analogy, pretend that I have a huge bag full of little tiny tiles. You reach in and pull out a tile with the number 42 on it. From just that information, what are the odds that you would have pulled out a tile with the number 42 on it? Of course, there is no way of calculating this probability. For all we know, every single tile has a 42 on it, or perhaps 1,000 of them do. We just don't know. The same applies to the origin of life. No one can calculate the odds of life originating through abiogenesis because no one knows all of the possible combinations of molecules that can lead to life.

But Hoyle didn't "calculate the odds of life forming by natural processes". His calculation has no relevance to this question, because he calculated the odds of something other than the origin of life --- and without any reference to natural processes, since proteins don't actually form by amino acids just spontaneously chaining themselves together at random.

Relax, Guys. I'm not trying to defend the calculation. My reply was prompted by Percy saying no scientist had produced such a calculation and was an attempt to show the origin of it. I recalled the figure from way back, and a little search led me to G Korthof's site where he stated Robert Shapiro mentioned Hoyle's figures in "Origins. A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth" Hoyle's application of his calculation to the assembly of proteins seems to have transmogrified in YEC eyes to the odds of life forming.

Im not your pal, buddy!He might learn from my reply after all

I'm not your buddy, chum!You wanna lay odds on that?

In the early 1990's, I had gone into the university library and looked up Hoyle's book. This was after I had done my analysis in the late 1980's of Dawkins' Chapter Three of his book, The Blind Watchmaker, so I was aware of the vast difference between single-step selection (abysmally poor probability of success) and evolution's cumulative selection (virtually inevitable). Hoyle's argument was 100% single-step selection, so it had absolutely nothing to say about evolution. The guy, despite his PhD and reputation in astronomy, didn't have a clue. http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/monkey.html: the opening page to my MONKEY program and my mathematical analysis of how it works; it's my own implementation of Dawkins' WEASEL program in The Blind Watchmaker, Chapter Three.Here's another thought about his "tornado in a junkyard assembling a fully functional 707", or was that a 747? Put the parts of a, admittedly old model of car's, carburetor -- before computer-controlled fuel-injection, that was what cars' engines used -- into a coffee can and seal it with the can's plastic lid. Now shake it vigorously for a long time. A very long time. As long as your arms and ears can hold out. What's the result of your efforts? A bunch of disconnected parts and a degree of hearing loss. Now, belatedly for the sake of your hearing, what reason would you have ever had of any of those parts spontaneously connecting themselves into functional configurations? None whatsoever, right? Doesn't it make sense to you that mechanical parts do not connect and combine themselves in such a manner?Now, take a mixture of amino acids and combine them into a container. Furthermore, make that a super-unsaturated mixture in water at high temperatures. What do you observe? The amino acids readily form into protein-like chains and are encapsulated in microspheres, which interestingly strongly resemble micro-fossils. Many of them are auto-catalytic. And in an anti-septic environment (ie, no other organisms exist that would consider these proteinoids food), those microspheres last indefinitely.Those were the findings of Sidney Fox.So then, if we bang mechanical parts together violently, they fail to combine into any kind of functional mechanisms. If we mix amino acids together with a bit of heat, we get auto-catalytic protein-like chains. Conclusion? Hoyle's tornado analogy isn't worth a fetid dingo's kidneys.Share and enjoy! PS
I shouldn't need to, but just in case.Once upon a time, there was a great geek's show, The ScreenSavers on TechTV, originally Ziff-TV, I think. But then TechTV in San Fransisco got bought out by a gaming channel in Los Angeles, G-4. And they fired some of the old TechTV staff (eg, Leo LaPorte) and other staff members elected to remain in San Fransisco (eg, Patrick Norton, the Uni-kilt guy). So during the transition, G-4 got younger cast members and eventually morphed The ScreenSavers into a pale imitation, Attack of the Show.Somewhere in that wicked metamorphosis, after all the cast had been converted to the young and ignorant, one cast member had been given a t-shirt to wear. On the front was a circle containing the number, "42", and on the back was a person's head with a towel wrapped around it with the caption, "Do you know where your towel is?" And the kid had absolutely no idea what that meant. Nor did any other cast member know. Finally, members of the audience had to explain it to them and they still did not understand!Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Fit the First through Fit the Sixth.Edited by dwise1, : PS

Thanks dwise1I learned a lot from you post. And it was very funny, too!It would be nice if the person who put the number of 10 to the power of 40 000 or million or billion or trillion or whatever on this forum (hint Chuck77), to come around to try and demonstrate how that number was obtained. That would be the way of evaluating it. Statements don't mean much. Anyone can claim anything (Hoyle) and others can act as parrots (Chuck77). I would look at demonstrations.Edited by Pressie, : Added nameEdited by Pressie, : No reason given.

Hi Dwise. Regarding cumulative selection, Dawkins said the above. Unless I missed something, he did not explain what would randomly assemble multiple copies similar to, yet slightly different from the original.

Unless I'm missing something, the answer to "what would randomly assemble multiple copies similar to, yet slightly different from the original" would be reproduction with variation.And after you have made nearly 9000 posts on this forum, how can you not know the answer to this question?After all this time, we should not have to point out the bleedin' obvious to you about what every scientifically literate person thinks.