Why do people believe what they believe?

Mathematics is a tool of science, not a scientific discipline. When describing science, mathematics is often used as counterpoint because proof lies within the mathematical but not the scientific realm. You said the same thing just 10 minutes before in another thread. You're welcome to try to demonstrate this mathematically, or provide a reference to someone who demonstrates this, but the experience of everyone here so far with this argument is that it is never supported, just asserted. This is because you cannot calculate the probability of events when you don't know how they happened.It would be different if scientists first said, "Life developed like this," and then Creationists sat down with their math tables and said, "Look, this is mathematically impossible." But scientists cannot say how life first developed because there is too little evidence to go upon at this time. There may never be sufficient evidence.So the next time someone tells you the development of life from non-life is mathematically impossible, you know they're blowing smoke. Amino acids form by chance in space. Eight of the twenty amino acids comprising life on earth have been found in meteorites. Look at the company your statement keeps: Man will never travel faster than 50 mph. Man will never fly. Man will never go to the moon. Man will never create life from non-life.You're probably aware we can build DNA sequences to order. Scientists have already constructed made-to-order uni-cellular life by borrowing the cell wall and contents from one organism while replacing the nucleus and nucleic material with their own customizations.If life were here (which it is) and we could conceive no natural means by which life could arrive, your arguments might carry more weight. But scientists have no problem speculating on ways it might have happened, and none of them violate known physical laws.--Percy

JonF has already dealt with Dembski, so I'll deal with Yockey.You might recall that I once asked you how you could calculate the probability of something when you didn't know how it happened. No one knows how life first arose, but Yockey goes ahead and calculates its probability anyway. That should be a warning sign for you.Yockey seems to think that evolutionists believe the first life came about when all the necessary elements combined miraculously into the proper chemical compounds in the correct physical configuration in a single event. In reality, scientists do not know or claim to know how life first arose, but they're pretty sure it didn't happen like this. I don't know if Yockey's probability calculations are correct, but the process he describes sounds like one hell of an unlikely event.Current abiogenesis theories hold that life arose through a long and complicated unknown process. No one believes it happened all at once like a miracle. To calculate the probability of these events that led to the first life you would have to know what those events were. We don't know what they were, therefore calculating their probability isn't possible.People like Dembski and Yockey spend at least part of their time composing scientfic-sounding pseudo-arguments that look scientific to those unfamiliar with science. If and when they come up with a genuine scientific argument it will be published in scientic journals instead of being relegated to Creationist publications and websites.--Percy

Uh, yes, chance, precisely what your quote talks about in Message 38: You then go on to say: Your quote says "anything", as in "Anything as rare as that probability has absolutely no possibility of happening..." It doesn't say life it says *anything*. Not that Dembski's work is correct, but you should at least be consistent with the work you're citing. The honest "I don't know" is to be preferred, wouldn't you say, to a dishonest made-up answer? It is the "I don't knows" within science that provide the motivation for research, and that's what this is, an area of research. It certainly is not an area of enforced ignorance. We are not ignorant for any lack of trying. As has already been explained to you several times now, there isn't much evidence left regarding the origin of life around 3.8 billion years ago. Perhaps there's enough for us to piece together the story someday, perhaps not. Only time will tell. But for now it remains an area of research.And until scientists are able to piece together an actual story, people like Dembski and Yockey are calculating probabilities for things they don't yet know enough about to be doing this.--Percy