FranklinMichaelV.3
Well-Known Member
The amount of mass contributed (meteors, T-rex would have been made of earth stuff) by those things are considered negligble.
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Why don't Theist's admit that there's no evidence for God?
- Thread starter Philomath
- Start date
The amount of mass contributed (meteors, T-rex would have been made of earth stuff) by those things are considered negligble.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
It's not pure luck, it's faulty assumptions. Your example and the example of people assuming that humans were predestined, are both faulty. Yours, in this case, assumes that only one specific individual could come about and thus builds odds based upon that assumption. When the assumption is faulty, the odds are faulty. The same is true of people who assert that humans were the end goal of evolution or whatever. Evolution has no goals. We are the end result of evolution, we were never planned. That's simple human arrogance.
FranklinMichaelV.3
Well-Known Member
What assumption? I posted a picture that just showed the probability of us (or me as I am now) being here, a probability that is close to Zero yet we are here, showing that just because the probability is low doesn't mean it is impossible.
Whatever else you read out of it (destiny or whatever) is your own idea.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
That is not what I meant or true. However even if it was then it is not a closed system. Can we not agree what closed means?
1robin
Christian/Baptist
Me and two others explained what is wrong with your math. Probability doesn't work that way. If you do not understand that, it is fine with me but it is true non the less.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
No, it's a false assumption. Probabilities work forward, not backward. It's a misuse of mathematics. Proper probabilities take what you know now and project the possibilities into the future. They do not take what we know now and project back into the past to learn how we got to this point.
Your example, whether you intended it or not, is a clear example of the absurdity of a lot of religious apologetics that use the same kind of wrong-headed thinking. In fact, I've used your example for years to show the absurdity of theistic probability claims.
I wonder if 1robin would agree
I have to admit, I assumed that was the reason for posting it..
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
I wonder if 1robin would agree
Doesn't really matter, but judging from what I've seen, it would seem so, at least to a certain degree.
I did too, I initially posted with that assumption, it's a little baffling that one would post such a thing and not have that in mind.
..which would be odd, because it's exactly the same sort of maths fallacy as he's using
FranklinMichaelV.3
Well-Known Member
I'm fairly sure you actually did not read the image at this point.
I presented an image that shows the supposed night improbability of You coming into being taking points in existence and moving from that point. You'll notice that it doesn't start from you and move backwards, it starts from a point in the past and says that is the probability at that point, it then moves on to another point in the future. I don't see it moving backwards from a point where you existed and back.
I even said that if we depended on probability for "things not to happen" then it would look like everything was pure luck.
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Evolution itself is certain. The probability of any particular evolutionary step happening has inherent uncertainty (because it's garnered from evidence).
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FranklinMichaelV.3
Well-Known Member
Ah okay, but what merits a particular step in evolution? I.e. the probability of a Gene being passed on?
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
Sorry, you're just wrong.
But it does. It starts from the past and works to the present. The reason this fails is because it assumes incorrectly that you were a goal from the beginning. Nothing could be further from the truth. The argument is made that it is virtually impossible for you to come into existence due to the wide array of possible variables along the path. Your great-great-great-great grandparents didn't decide "hey, let's make sure there's a child with this particular DNA pattern that pops up in a couple generations". You were never the goal, you were the result of what happened. Therefore, there are no odds of getting you because there was no plan to get you in the first place. You are the result of the process, not the goal of it.
It's not pure luck, it's bad mathematics. What's worse, you just presented one of the most damning arguments against theistic apologist arguments and you don't even understand it.
FranklinMichaelV.3
Well-Known Member
How is it assuming you were a goal, it's generic enough to be assessed towards all individuals. If I flip a coin what are the odds it'll be heads? There is no end goal, but there is still an odds for it. What are the odds that you will get a boy or a girl, there's no goal particularly there but there are variables that will influence it.
You seem to be thinking that I'm arguing for the idea of the probability being low, my point is that you can't rely on probability arguments because they dont' accurately show what is actually there. IT's why I find the idea that of "well the odds of us being here, or life forming, or whatever" to be inaccurate because we are obviously here so the odds themselves don't matter, because it happened.
I don't know--I was just commenting on your chart, which gave a probability for our existence.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
I think what's she's talking about is the probability for a specific mutation to occur. Basically, each time you roll the die, the probability for a 6 is 1/6th. But after you've rolled, the probability for whatever it shows, has "collapsed" to 1:1. If we look at someone's DNA at this moment and tried to calculate the chances of such-and-such gene mutate exactly this-or-that way, then chance is extremely small. But, the chances of a mutation anywhere on the DNA to happen is much, much larger (I read somewhere that statistically, every second person in the world has a unique mutation, mostly harmless though, like our planet, in cosmos, so don't panic...).
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
The odds of any particular coin flip is 50%. There is a 50% chance it will be heads, there is a 50% chance it will be tails. No matter how many times you flip a coin, each individual flip has the exact same chances for any particular result. The same results, in general, are true of the gender of a child. It's either male or female (ignoring the slim possibility of hermaphrodites for the moment). Those chances are generally the same no matter how many breedings you perform. Say it's 50%, even though it really isn't. If you do it 5x or 10x or 100x, the chances are always approximately the same.
However, once you start planning for characteristics of that child, you're no longer talking about chance. If you start saying that you want a female, blonde-haired, blue-eyed child, there are chances that you can calculate for producing such a thing, but that's not how pretty much anyone operates. Nobody says "I want a great-great-great-granddaughter that has blonde-hair and blue eyes, let's calculate the chances". If they happen to have one, fine. It's a misuse of mathematics to pretend that because they have one, that it was planned all along.
Yes, we're here. The chances of us being here is 1:1 because here we are. There are no arguments for "wow, look at how positively unlikely it is that we're here" because it's not unlikely at all, we're here! In fact, it's absolutely assured. Understanding why the percentage game doesn't work for you and me shows you why the percentage game doesn't work for claims about evolution, star formation, etc. It takes a known quantity that exists today and assumes that it was the point of the whole process, when it wasn't the point, we weren't a goal when the process started, we were the result of many random combinations and just happened to get spit out the other end.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
Agree with what you're saying and the rest of your post too.
Just adding, the chances for a sequence of any given coin flips goes down. To get head-head, head-tail, tail-head, or tail-tail are each 25%. (Right? Leaving open for the mathists to correct me.
). And three head in a row is even lower. And so on. So to get HTTHTTHTHHHTHTHHHT is extremely low, but it's just as low as HTTHTTHTHHHTHTHHHH or HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH or TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.The good thing with evolution is that even with random mutations like this, the best combinations tend to increase in presence in the gene pool and increase the chances of reproduction. Which makes it less "random" for best picks.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
Agree with what you're saying and the rest of your post too.
Just adding, the chances for a sequence of any given coin flips goes down. To get head-head, head-tail, tail-head, or tail-tail are each 25%. (Right? Leaving open for the mathists to correct me.
The good thing with evolution is that even with random mutations like this, the best combinations tend to increase in presence in the gene pool and increase the chances of reproduction. Which makes it less "random" for best picks.
Well, in genetics, the mutations don't exist in a vacuum like coin flips do. A coin flip is just there, it doesn't actually affect anything else. A mutation actually has survival benefits or detriments. A creature has to survive and a mutation either makes that easier, harder or has no effect. If it makes survival easier, that mutation gets passed on to the next generation more often, if not, it doesn't. The evolutionary pressures can operate on that mutation again in the next generation.