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From: david@ssc-vax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Some numbers for the Creation
Message-ID: <111@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 29-Apr-84 15:16:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: ssc-vax.111
Posted: Sun Apr 29 15:16:28 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 1-May-84 07:11:47 EDT
Organization: Boeing Aerospace, Seattle
Lines: 97

"mwm" (sorry, no name):

> I haven't run into anybody who is particularly bothered by the fact that
> there may not have been anything before the Big Bang (Event 1).  I
> personally favor the cyclic theory, which says that before Event 1, there
> was another universe that expanded and then recontracted back to the cosmic
> egg. No problems with a Beginning there.

What about reversing Entropy?

> Last time I looked, the most reasonably sounding hypotheses what the the
> basic living organisms (viruses and on down) got together in the cloud of
> shit (Sorry, but fertilizer doesn't sound right) that the Earth formed
> from. Given that they keep finding newer and more complex organic molecules
> in *interstellar* dust clouds, almost anything could pop up down here where
> THE STUFF GETS THICK. [emphasis mine - DCN]

I'm not going to touch this one!  Seriously, the last paragraph provides a
response.

> Your definition of miraculously low and mine differ. Given a universe to
> play with, the probability of life forming somewhere indistinguishable from
> one. (ok - I confess, I didn't do the calculations. If you insist, I will.
> But you'll have to settle for a rough estimate. Everything I can calculate
> with gets upset when you get beyond a few thousand digits.)  I suspect that
> a relatively small chunk of the universe, like a galaxy.  Rough guess:
> given that there is one chance in a billion for life to form on a planet,
> and that there is roughly one planet per star (very rough guess, and low by
> current estimates), the probability that there is somewhere in the galaxy
> (discounting us) is: .99995. See? Big numbers easily make up for small
> probabilities.

The following is taken from Boa & Moody's "I'm glad you asked."  I offer it
in the hope that some informed soul can shed some light on its veracity.
"One chance in a billion" is peanuts compared to the numbers we should be
talking about:

  "Beginning with the first step, many evolutionists assume a primordial
earthly atmosphere with no oxygen so that amino acids could be formed.
However, the very atmosphere that could produce them would immediately lead
to their destruction (due to ultraviolet light penetrating this oxygen-free
atmosphere) unless they were protected.  Unfounded assumptions must be
multiplied to overcome this problem.
   On the next level, let us assume an ideal environment with a primordial soup
full of amino acids and the proper catalysts, with just the right temperature
and moisture.  Some estimate that under these favorable conditions the
chances of getting dipeptides (two amino acids bonded) would be about 1 in 100.
But the chances of tripeptide formation would be about 1 in 10,000.  To get a
polypeptide of only 10 amino acids, the probability would be 1 chance in
100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (100 quintillion).  Yet the proteins in the
simplest living things have chains of at least 400 amino acids on the average.
   To make matters worse, all proteins are built of amino acids that are
exclusively "left-handed" in their molecular orientation.  Left-handed and
right-handed amino acids are mirror images of each other, and the chances of
formation are about the same.  Although both kinds can link with each other,
the first living systems must have been built with left-handed components
only.  Some scientists have evoked natural selection here, but this only
applies to systems that can already reproduce themselves.  Without an
intelligent ordering agent, we have only chance to explain this amazing
phenomenon.  For a chain of 400 left-handed amino acids, the odds would be
roughly equivalent to tossing an ordinary coin and coming up with tails 400
times in a row.  The chances for that would be approximately 1 in 10^120
( a 1 followed by 120 zeroes).  All this for *one* protein molecule,
and hundreds of similar molecules would be needed in the first living
system. 
   None of this accounts for the fact that the 20 kinds of amino acids
operate like letters in an alphabet, and they must link in a meaningful
sequence to form a usable protein.  A random sequence of amino acids
would be utterly useless.
   DNA is far more complex than any of this, and it too is built out of a
highly organized alphabet.  The letters are molecules called nucleotides.
A cell contains a chain of about three billion pairs of these nucleotides
(each gene has about 1,200 nucleotide pairs).  The order of these
nucleotides or bases is crucial because every triplet of bases along this
immense chain is a word.  Each word stands for one of the 20 kinds of
amino acids.  Using these words the DNA can literally create any kind of
protein the cell needs.
   The amount of time required to synthesize even one gene (a paragraph of
these words) has been calculated by some scientists using absurdly
generous assumptions.  Using a variation on a well-known illustration,
suppose a bird came once every billion years and removed only one atom from
a stone the size of the solar system.  The amount of time required for the
stone to be worn to nothing would be negligible compared to the time needed
to create a useful gene by chance, even accounting for chemical affinities
and an ideal environment.  Shaw's monkeys would long since have pounded
out the words of Shakespeare!"

Earlier in the chapter, it was noted that the time required for 1 million
monkeys typing at 100 words/minute, 24 hours a day on typewriters with
40 keys to type the first four words of a Shakepearian play would be about
100 billion years.

I am not a "creationist", as I understand that term.  But it is impossible
for me to see how man could have evolved from chance.

	-- David Norris        :-)
	-- uw-beaver!ssc-vax!david