The Pagan 'problem'

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The Eternal T
The Eternal Oct 2, 2010 22:35:23
Replying to The Sea Cat

The Sea Cat wrote:
Maybe Fred Hoyle, the emminent Astronomer/Cosmolgist was on to something when he posited that the random chance creation of life forms was similar to the chances of ' a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747'. It certainly makes one think.

(Edited for typos and clarity).

Hi Sea Cat,
I love the comparison of chance,me, the 747 thingy.
A fairly recent one I heard was that of the Euromillions lottery. The National Lottery has a 14 million to one chance of being won, but the Euromillions one has a few hundred million to one chance (can't quite remember the correct figure), but they compared it to picking up your phone, dialling a random number, and the Queen picking up the other end.
Brings it home, eh? Best spending that quid on the horses, methinks. Or on a swift half, not being a gambling man.
Regards,
TE.

N nigelswift
nigelswift Oct 3, 2010 06:12:12
Replying to The Eternal

There's an analysis of Hoyle's claim here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoyle's_fallacy

I think the crux is that for the tornado creating the 747 to be a valid comparison with evolution it would need to create it not all at once by chance but by a vast series of trials and errors culminating in a finished 747.
On that basis, apparently, evolution is a viable theory as there is a believable possibility that the requisite number of trials and errors have happened in order to arrive at the life forms we see.

Creationists use the same "impossible chances" argument to say evolution couldn't have produced an eye but I saw Prof Dawkins on telly the other day going through the known sequence of it's development via miniscule improvements providing survival advantages and it made perfect sense. ;)

As for why people go mad at creationists I dunno why that is but I'm one of them. They just annoy me. Did you know there's a creationist museum in Plymouth?

T tiompan
tiompan Oct 3, 2010 09:52:57
Replying to The Eternal

The Eternal wrote:
A fairly recent one I heard was that of the Euromillions lottery. The National Lottery has a 14 million to one chance of being won, but the Euromillions one has a few hundred million to one chance (can't quite remember the correct figure), but they compared it to picking up your phone, dialling a random number, and the Queen picking up the other end.

Regards,
TE.

The German lottery was won in 1995 and 1986 with an identical combination of numbers ;15-25-27-30-42-48 . It is perceived as being a coincidence but there was 25% chance of that two winning combinations would be identical over that period .