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From: beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (beth d. christy)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Isolation and Unique Species
Message-ID: <476@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 11-May-85 17:35:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.476
Posted: Sat May 11 17:35:45 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 16-May-85 02:35:49 EDT
Organization: U. Chicago - Computation Center
Lines: 45

[keep :-)ing]

>[From: dan@scgvaxd.UUCP (Dan Boskovich), Message-ID: <314@scgvaxd.UUCP>]
>
>In article <830@mhuxt.UUCP> js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) writes:
>>    I see.  And all of the species which are found in isolated habitats and
>>nowhere else just got off the ark, traveled halfway around the world or so,
>>directly to their isolated habitats (building boats if need be), leaving no
>>offspring anywhere else, and established themselves where they were supposed
>>to be.  Sounds real likely to me.
>
>  Much more likely than the animals coming from an amoeba. More likely
>  than all the right elements of the SOUP coming together at just the
>  right time in just the right environment to form life.

If you threw a hundred thousand dice and noted the combination that came up,
then asked someone what is the likelihood of that particular combination
arising in one throw of the dice, they'd probably dispense with the math and
say simply, yet emphatically, "Not Very Likely".  And they'd be quite right.
But it's extremely likely (certain, in fact) that *some* (roughly) equally
unlikely combination would arise.

If you took an organic soup with a hundred billion "dice" in it and noted
what particular arrangements of the "dice" formed, ... (you get the drift).
The point is: in a dynamic environment *some* arrangement (for want of a
less design-implying word) will show.  And who's to say that the one that
did show is the only one that would have resulted in life?  It may (or may
not) have been the only one that resulted in Life As We Know It.  But it may
well be the case that *most* of the combinations would've resulted in *some*
kind of creature who, given enough time, could've looked back and said "HA.
What's the 'likelihood' of life [as we know it] arising from SOUP?!" Then
again, it may not.  The point here is to remind you to be careful of "like-
lihood", because it's not just likely, but *certain*, that *something* would
have arisen.

>  Please, don't be silly! Animals can't build boats!

How did animals who can neither swim nor build boats, like kangaroos, get
from Mount Arrarat (sp?) to Australia (given, of course, that kangaroos
didn't evolve from animals that *could* swim or build boats :-) )?

-- 

--JB                                           "The giant is awake."