What an artless comparison. So, do you just happen to live in the “won the lottery” universe?
We don’t know how our universe came about, nor do we have enough knowledge to even calculate the probability of living in a universe like ours. That’s the whole point.
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Actually it’s an excellent rebuttal to the standard Creationist “it’s too darn improbable!!” idiocy. Not that you would understand of course.
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Oh, I understand the idiocy you guys are showing just fine, thanks. I am not a “standard creationist,” by any means. I don’t deny evolution, just its sufficiency as the whole explanation, which you guys have already admitted as an unsolved question.
It’s nonsense whether you are arguing against evolution or abiogenesis.
What nonsense… I am characterizing, not simply denying. Get a new set of ears!
See this short trailer, then enjoy the ensuing lecture at a CalTech venue.
To save time, forward the lecture to 7:30 minutes in.
Or this one, to 3:00 minutes in.
All you’re doing is repeating scientifically unsupported and long discredited “it’s too improbable!!” Creationist nonsense.
I consider the “evolution explains the whole shebang” position as one long, sustained, argument from credulity.
So there! : )
Sober’s “The Design Argument” is currently freely available at the Philosophy of Religion section of the Cambridge Elements collection, as provided in a previous PS thread:
Elements in the Philosophy of Religion
Sober provides a careful analysis of the Fine Tuning Argument. He does raise the objection that there is no principled way to choose a probability distribution for the constants to assess their likelihood under various hypotheses, but he finds this argument unconvincing. As a counter, he provides what he thinks is a principled way to provide a distribution as the limit of a family of distributions.
However, Sober does think the Observer Selection Effect argument against the FTA invalidates the cosmological FTA by the Weak Anthropic Principle: “what we can expect to observe must be restricted by the conditions necessary for our presence as observers”. Once the WAP is taking into account, arguments for the FTA fail, according to Sober.
Some raise the firing squad counter to the WAP, but Sober shows why it does not apply to the cosmological FTA, at least in his view.
See also here for details on the nature of the firing squad objection to the WAP and for another look at the FTA overall,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/#AnthObje
That’s because our position is based on evidence and yours isn’t, and you routinely misrepresent our position.
Who is saying that evolution explains planet formation or the origin of life?
Exactly. So, it’s not an adequate “whole shebang” explanation. Glad you agree.
There is no theory in science that explains everything, so I am curious why you think evolution would be such a theory.
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There are evolutionary theories regarding a lot more than just biology. To the extent that they focus on the developmental context of all things, I appreciate them. To the extent that some use them to insist there’s no God needed to explain things, I have to suppress the laughter which automatically comes on the heels of such hubris --or, “chutzpah.” Unfortunately, it’s not just a laughing matter.
Ideas are not necessarily benign, and choices have consequences.
I was tied up with work for a few days (I finally escaped!)
OK, that’s a question - not a fair one, but it serves my purpose. Which is; I can’t possibly put a meaningful probability on that occurrence, no one can. To post that sort of problem then declare it to be impossible is not a useful statement.
How does any significant quantity of prebiotic molecules, or even amino acids, come to rest on the earth …
That is a very active question in ongoing research in abiogenesis. If you look, you can find articles on this topic, some presenting evidence, not just speculation.
… so significantly skewed against a racemic mixture of forms …
Yep, skewed. it’s clearly can’t happen just anywhere, the right conditions need to exist. Also a topic of ongoing research.
… that life just happens to “assemble” homochirally?
I want to say this has been resolved, but I don’t recall the source, and biochemistry isn’t my thing. There are definitely proposals for how to resolve this.
BUT NOW that I’ve broken the question down into pieces, maybe I could attempt to put probabilities on some of this. The first thing I note is that three probabilities couldn’t possibly describe the situation adequately, so we aren’t much closer than we started. Not much - but a little - and that’s how science works, figuring out the problems one small piece at a time.
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Where did I say it was impossible? I only characterized it as getting into an area of dwindling odds.
When we use the term “evolution” we are referring to the theory in biology.
When you use it, you usually restrict it to that, yes. Not everyone does.
Sorry, I should have chosen my words more carefully.
But, for some event x with probability p, Odds_x = \frac{p}{1-p}.
When you use the word “odds”, I see that as having a very specific mathematical meaning.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to rekindle the other arguments, but to get back to the objections listing in the OP.
Thanks for being willing to explore the oftentimes semantical nature of some of our disagreements. Neither of us is “run of the mill.”
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