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From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: If You've Got the Time...
Message-ID: <630@opus.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Jul-84 01:48:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: opus.630
Posted: Fri Jul 27 01:48:58 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Jul-84 01:35:38 EDT
References: <895@akgua.UUCP>
Distribution: net.religion
Organization: NBI, Boulder
Lines: 17

See the parent article for details, but the basic idea it advances is that
evolutionism doesn't cut it because the probability of evolution having
happened is way too low.

It's an old argument.  We've been around it at least once since this group
was created.  It's also a bad argument (though it's not as bad as the
Second-Law-of-Thermo arguments).  There are flaws in the numbers; there are
also flaws in the assumptions, such as assuming that either Earth is the
only planet that could evolve life or that every planet in the universe
with life-supporting potential has life.  One of the worst mistakes is
using probabilistic arguments to predict a single case.  (To illustrate:
the probability of tossing a fair coin 8 times and getting exactly the
sequence H H T H H H H T is less than one half of one percent.  However,
that sequence is as likely as any other!)
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
	...A friend of the devil is a friend of mine.