That’s not even my real problem, though is an incredibly bad thing and just sloppy. I’m contesting even that when I want to find something in the references, I can’t.
Josh has asked me to be kind. So I’ll merely quote some of the more insane items from that list:
oxygen quantity in atmosphere .1
The amount of oxygen in the atmosphere has, over time, varied from about 3% to more than 30%. That suggests there’s more than a 0.1 probability of it being at the right level to support life.
level of oxygen abundance in the galaxy .05
Even if we have the right amount of oxygen on Earth, we’re still not safe from global extinction - having the wrong amount of oxygen somewhere else will doom us. Unless this means that the amount of oxygen in the galaxy contributes to the amount found on Earth - but that leaves the question of how the amount on Earth is more likely to be appropriate than that in the galaxy. Go figure.
date for opening of the Drake Passage .01
The opening of the Drake passage within the last 60 million years isolated Antarctica and led to global climate change. If it hadn’t happened, goehistory would be different, and humans might not have evolved. But if it had happened at a different time, that doesn’t apply - it might only change when humans (or other intelligent species) evolved. There’s no reason to think we wouldn’t. Also note the 0.01 probability here. With a maximum window of 66my since the dinosaurs, a 0.01 probability means we can’t vary the opening time by more than 660,000 years. Unfortunately for Dr Ross, we don’t know exactly when it happened. It makes no sense to claim that the drake passage opening a million years earlier would have prevented the rise of humanity when for all we know it did open a million years earlier than our best estimate.
rate of leaf litter deposition upon soils .01
So there’s a sweet spot for leaf litter desposition rates and we’re in the right 1% - a bit more and there’d be too much, a bit less and there’d be too little. I wonder how much world deforestation has affected leaf litter deposition rates? But there’s also the spread off grasslands during the Cretaceous to consider - which surely altered the amount of leaf litter deposited enough to swing it outside that needed 1%. There’s also the invention of the lawnmower.
diversity of carnivore species .001
Only one chance in a thousand that we’ll have the right number of carnivore species to maintain a healthy ecosystem suitable for intelligent beings to evolve. It’s lucky that there are exactly 270 species of carnivore. If there were 271 we wouldn’t be here. Wait… did some-one just find a new species of olingo? Uh-oh…
level of upward stirring of ocean water by krill .001
variation in level of upward stirring of ocean water by krill .05
Only one chance in a thousand that there will be the right number of krill causing ocean mixing for intelligent life to appear? You might wonder whether this makes sense given the population variation, stabilisation and seasonal/predator-prey cycles, not to mention Malthusian population constraints. But the real problem here is that this factor is listed as necessary for the long-term survival of unicellular organisms. Dr Ross is claiming that single-celled organisms could not have survived for as long as they did if it hadn’t been for the presence of krill 400 million years later!
I’d ask if there was anyone who still thinks Dr Ross’s “probabilities” make sense now that they require time-travelling crustaceans, but unfortunately there’s no-one to ask. Humans don’t exist. They couldn’t have evolved, because cyanobacteria changed the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere too much. The spread of grasses reduced the amount of leaf litter too much. Even if the Drake passage opened at the right time, Pleistocene hunters killing all the megafauna made themselves extinct alongside the dire wolves, and we went extinct again when the last thylacine died in 1932. I wonder who’s writing this post?
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i tried to post something on this mans blog but it failed. there were no other posts on this subject either.
anyways.
The bible is clear the moon was made on creation week. it did not DRIFT into the earths orbits and build itself. It was created for a purpose. to rule the night with its light. like the sun. neither actually has light but provokes light.
The possible good point for YEC is wHY is the moon more potholed by impacts on one side then another? i read/swa this point somewhere.
if it had existed for millions of years then in a probability curve it would have impacts equally distributed around.
However if there IS a concentration and abscence then it suggest its not been around long and the impacts were from some events and not random.
Evidence is needed for any hypothesis on the moon. this stating as fact it moved into the neighbourhood in a dust cloud is just guessing.
Did you have thoughts on @Roy 's comments about that list @Mike_Strauss? That is the list you referred to as:
I also kept asking for you to find a peer-reviewed probably of anything. That list is not evidence for God at all and I would hope that people would stop referring to it as if it’s anything substantial.
Roy, you are confusing the percent oxygen level in an atmosphere that has oxygen with the percent probability for finding the right amount of oxygen in an planet’s atmosphere. The .1 percent probability is the latter not the former. In addition, advanced life forms have a much lower range for oxygen than the life that has existed through most of the earth’s history. So the calculation is for advanced life, not bacterial life, and then even the 3 to 30% will not work.
No, I’m not. I didn’t say that there was a 27% chance of the Earth having an appropriate level of oxygen in its atmosphere, only that I don’t think there was as little as 10% chance.
Feel free to provide any sources at all to justify the probability of Earth having between 3-30% of oxygen in its atmosphere as being at most 0.1. Unless you do, I see no reason to believe it.
Your own assertion isn’t good enough, not least because this:
Is simply untrue. That value is included in the calculation for bacterial life, and your assertion that it isn’t means either you didn’t check or you don’t care.
I note that you wisely haven’t tried to defend the article’s reliance on time-travelling crustaceans