Oh those clever evolutionists: Question-begging abiogenesis

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The probability problem is a problem for evolutionists, not for creationists, and should be conceded

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There is no problem - only lies and falsehoods. Thus the side that should concede is the creationist side. They should concede that there is no valid calculation of the probability. They should concede that all the "clculations" they have produced are not valid calculations for the origin of life. They should stop using the "probability argument" because it is groundless.Anything less would be dishonest.o

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Intuitively the odds are against abiogenesis and evolution itself to some astronomical degree, but since intuition isn't math you can just let the creationists go on knowing it's true while you pretend it isn't with all the scientific justification you can muster and keep the creationists marginalized by sheer force of assertion. It OUGHT to be conceded that with the present knowns the probabilities are against you

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Intuition is hardly a reliable guide - not when dealing with matters well beyond normal human experience. In truth you should concede that you don't know and neither does anybody else. You should concede that the calculations offered by creationists do not even begin to address the real issue of the origins of life.Your opinion in this case has no value. That is why it is marginalised, and that is why I wil not concede that your opinion represents a genuine problem for the theory of abiogenesis.

I don't agree that RAZD did beg the question.Your assertion that he did is based on a questionable inference.And I notice that you don't address the points I raised at all.

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Sorry, he himself computed the probabilities as if to do so were quite legitimate, then turned around and made this absurd self-serving generalization that undid the whole thing.

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That's not true. The calculation was NOT presented as legitimate.The first objection declared all such calculations illegitimate The calculation simply illustrated ANOTHER error.

Well you're still dead wrong about RAZD's post.But at least you're admitting that creationsim isn't science.

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Creationism is not in the business of creating models, it's in the business of reinterpretation, showing that evidence currently appropriated to evolutionism supports creationism better.

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Of course ccreationsim CAN'T show that the evidence fits creationism better without building a model. So creationism not only isn't science, it's doomed itself to failure.


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But evolutionists aren't bothered by the impossibilities and improbabilities in their work,

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Since we're onyl talking about yor opinions and subjective judgements why SHOULD scientists - who after all know the subject better than you care.

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That leaves creationists with the job of putting teeth into these incredulities.Which would be all right I guess except that in practice these efforts don't get any recognition either.

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If you mean that creationists should honestly support their laims you are correct. THe problem is that they fail to do so.Bogus calculations don't count. Misrepresentations of others views don't count. Demanding that others should agree with you doesn't count.

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Let's say I got arrested for a crime and the only evidence they had was that the criminal was British and a DNA sample. In court, the prosecution says "The chances of the DNA sample providing a false positive are a million to one, therefore you are almost certainly guilty"

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I reply, "No, the event - 'DNA sample coming back positive' - has already occurred. There are now two possibilities, one is that I am the criminal, the other is that it is a false positive. There are 60 million people in Britain so 59 people would have given a false positive result. Therefore the chances of me being the criminal are 60-to-1 against. I am more likely to be not guilty"

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And that reasoning would be correct. In the absence of other evidence all we could reasonably conclude from the DNA test is that you were one of the possible matches. (Perhaps it is clearer if we assume that the police simply test everyone in the country and arrest the first person they find whose DNA matches - which is equivalent to the situation you described).But that isn't the point that RAZD was originally making. There was a famous case that was more similar. As I remember it a woman had two babies die of "cot death" and was arrested and convicted of murder. The evidence against her was a doctor's claim that the probability of two such deaths was too high for it to be considered plausible that the deaths were natural. In fact the doctor's analysis was wrong - he had assumed that such deaths were statistically independant when in fact clinical data showed otherwise - given that one such death had occurred in the family a second was far more likely. RAZD was certainly correct to emphasise that probability calculations are only as good as the model they are based on and that the model should be shown to be sound before we rely on the results. And of course the models used by creationists are always indefensible.Quite frankly the criticisms that can be justifiably raised againt RAZD are minor in comparison to those that should be raised against the creationists. Even Faith's behaviour within this thread has been worse.

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Faith's position is that since we have life what are the chances it arrived here abiogenetically?

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Which is a point already adequately dealt with in the original thread. Despite Faith's misrepresentations RAZD (and others) clearly stated that the probability was unknowable.Equally the probability of a creator producing life is also unknowable since we have no good evidence of even one being potentially able to start life on earth. Let alone the ability to assess whether it would do so in a way consistent with out knowledge of what did happen. (Faith's God would not and thus we can eliminate Faith's God as being even less likely than abiogenesis).Then we have other possibilities like panspermia. Come to that if some of the wackier ideas about QM and observation were true they could guarantee that observers would come to exist (only states with an observer present could collapse, therefore even if those states had a low probability the universe would be guaranteed to collapse to one of those states).Personally I'd rate abiogenesis as more likely than any of the others. But - unlike Faith - I'm not proud enough to insist that my opinion should be taken as significant in itself.

And I'd argue that it isn't begging the question although it is evading the question Faith is asking. But then Faith isn't addressing the question either. In fact RAZD is claoser to the right path in that the probability must be conditioned on the fact that life is observed. Otherwise it is not necessary that the probabilities add up to 1.A slightly more charitable assertion is that Faith is arguing that abiogenesis is so improbable as to be impossible - that it would never happen. But then her claim that Nuggin agreed with her is a blatant misrepresentation since Nuggin put the probability at a higher level, where abiogenesis likely would happen somewhere in this universe.

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You are discussing an off topic point. The only point of this thread is RAZD's assuming abiogenesis in the process of supposedly defending it in a debate.

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In actual fact RAZD was criticising the use of probability arguments against abiogenesis, not arguing for it. If the thread has discussed matters related to that issue it is because you have been less than clear about the issue up to now and so your error has not been obvious.

I suggest you quote the part of the post which indicates that there is an argument for abiogenesis instead of a criticism of probability arguments. I can't see one - and I don't beleive there is any such statement in the post. And no, the quote in your OP isn't it - that's clearly an attack on the use of probabilty argumentsBut then your assertion that RAZD considered the probability calculation in the post to be valid was an even more blatant falsehood - since it required ignoring the preceding text that explicitly denied the possiblity of making a valid calculation

And that is clearly an attack on probability arguments and NOT an argument for abiogenesis.Therefore this does not support Faith's assertion that RAZD was arguing for abiogenesis.

I'm not convinced that that is true. Your "translation" certainly doesn't correspond to anything explicit in the text.