Peg quote:
Robert Naeye, a writer for Astronomy magazine and an evolutionist, wrote that life on earth is the result of "a long sequence of improbable events [that] transpired in just the right way to bring forth our existence, as if we had won a million-dollar lottery a million times in a row."
now what are the odds of that?
Are we being a naughty little liar Peg? Please provide the citation that says Bob Naeye is an evolutionist. You do realise his field is astronomy don't you...i've never come across any articles where he dips his toes into the Toe - pardon my pun.
Now to educate you a little:
Bob Naeye like any astronomer knows the probable number of planets in our universe exceeds a billion billion at a VERY conservative estimate....this is not idle guesswork, the inference is made from studies of the huge known number of galaxies - the way in which they are formed, the huge amount of stellar matter (evidenced by spin rotation caused by matter - obeying known laws of physics)and the planetary theories of formation from accretion discs. If you want to argue any of the above I first suggest you read up on astronimical phenomena in a respected peer reviewed science journal (not some piffling retarded creationist junk publication).
Now abiogenesis, of wich is required ONLY ONCE on a planet to kick start life-processes may indeed be like winning a lottery (the suggestion of a million times in a row is meaningless - on what is that based? Truth is we don't know how unlikely it is). But even if it is as low as one in a billion, the fact that there is at least a billion billion planets out there would still mean life could have kickstarted a billion times ....not so difficult as one might think.
OK says you...what if it was a billion times harder than that...suppose there is only one in a billion billion chance...well with a billion billion plantets that would mean one...and here we are. You see Peg you can't just pluck junk figures based on nothing out of thin air...if you are going to come up with a factual figure you have to be able to justify it - and then compare it against our estimated number of a billion billion planets which although is also just estimated - is in fact based on solid astronomical observations.
Now on to the ToE itself - which doesn't in any way use abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is needed in the first place to kickstart things off and i've dealt with that above....once life begins on a planet then the ToE kicks in and comprises just two simple parts working in elegant harmony:
1. Succeding generations differ from the parent generation (via genetic variation)....this is known in detail and even you Peg would have to be a complete fool to say there is no variation between parents and their offspring.
2. Natural selection selects the 'fitest' for that particular environment which allows evolution to 'progress'...again you'd have to be completely stupid to deny such a basic statement.
Here's the rub for you now and the link to the OP:
The Toe gauantees that once life kickstarts then evolution MUST happen because both 1. and 2. above do happen and this 'forces' a descent with modification based on natural selection - as Darwin long ago put it.
So to compare evolution with God in terms of probablitity is junk worthy only of an impaired thought process.
Summary:
1. No quantitative probability of God can be given at all - just as much probablility for him based on evidence (or total lack of it) as there is for Santa Claus (and at least Santa fetches me presents...lol)
2. Abiogenesis which is need for life to start in our scientific model is likely to be a very improbable event, but because of the vast number of planets evidenced out there it becomes actually very likely that abiogenesis has happend (and will happen in the future) on a good number of them...and it only had to happen once - Earth for the model to hold)
3.Once abiogenesis has taken effect on a planet the ToE effectively guarantees that evolution will proceed - if you don't understand why then please read Dawkin's 'Selfish Gene','The Blind Watchmaker' or 'Climbing mount Improbable'.
Conclusion:
Probability of God existing? - Utterly impossible to say as absolutely no evidence (sorry Peg - the bible is written by man and is not evidence for a God) but is in the reallm of Santa Claus, The Pink Unicorn and the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Probability of life existing and evolving as per the TOE? Actually quite likely - it's nowhere near as impossible as you think.
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