quote:
Thomas Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog") is said to have come up with the most famous defense of the atheist belief that life was created by chance, not God. In a debate at Oxford, he is reported to have stated that if enough monkeys randomly pressed typewriter keys for a long enough time, sooner or later Psalm 23 would emerge.
Not all atheists use this argument, but it accurately represents the atheist belief that with enough time and enough solar systems, you'll get you, me, and Bach's cello suites.
This belief has always struck me as implausible. The argument that infinitely complex intelligence came about by itself, unguided by any intelligence, can only be deemed convincing by those who have a vested interest (intellectual, emotional, psychological) in atheism.
I doesn't seem to me that this is necessarily so.
It can be claimed on a purely mathematical basis :
If you throw up a number of coins, the chance that all heads will come up is remote, but it can happen once in a while.
If you add coins to the lot, the chance that all heads will come up is smaller still, but it still isn't impossible.
If you pursue this reasoning further, you can end up concluding that, sonner or later, whatever the number of coins you use, all heads MUST come up, provided you go on throwing your coins for long enough.
Does that make sense ?
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