Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesdmanley
well considering natures natural state is disorder i find it fantastically improbable that the minute complexities of life (just think about how complex dna is) could happen by chance or on accident.
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OK, let me offer you a alternate example:
Suppose you take 100 fair dice, and throw them. You will get a given set of results. What are the chances of getting that set of results? They are, approximately, 1 in 653,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000 (1 in 6 to the power 100)
Wow - talk about improbable! You could throw those 100 dice once every nanosecond for the lifetime of the universe, and you're still vanishingly unlikely to throw that same set of numbers!
So why did you get that specific set of numbers from the dice. Random chance, obviously.
I agree with you entirely that the formation of a molecule as complex as DNA through random chance is monstrously unlikely, but that point is that
we live in the universe in which it happened, just as we live in the universe in which you threw that specific set of (probably) even more unlikely results on the dice.
We can't, therefore, turn around and say "what's the chance of that happening?" any more than most people would turn around and say that a divine being must have caused the set of numbers we threw on the dice. We already know that the outcome
did happen. It's irrevelent how unlikely it is.
That, anyway, is my view of the universe. Random organic chemistry.
If you haven't read it, I'd strongly recommend to you the book "The Blind Watchmaker", by Richard Dawkins. He explains this stuff enormously better than I can.