From: robd@cherry09 (Robert Derrick)
Subject: Re: dawkins/_the selfish
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Distribution: talk
Date: 21 Aug 92 14:04:01 CDT

"herb sutter" (herb.sutter@canrem.com) wrote:
: (Robert Derrick) writes:
  [a post demonstrating impossible probabilities]
: 
: Here's one problem (among many, but I'm already days late with this reply
: and I'm rushing):

I was beginning to think that no one would notice.  Of course it is 
filled with problems.  That is because the original assumption is not
valid.

 [retreived from the original post]
%%%
  Golay's Number- 10^450: "the odds against such a [simplest imaginable
	replicating system] organizing itself randomly" - What Is Creation
	Science, by Gary Parker and Henry Morris, pg. 270
%%%

You write:
:                  Only that one chance among 10^whatever will in this
: model produce Life As We Know It.  The others produce nothing, nada.  Not
: just here, but anywhere in the universe.  The universe is a big place, but
: not big enough to beat exponents that big (do you have any remote grasp on
: how BIG those numbers are??  -- I don't).

Yes, I do have a concept of how big the number is.  It is effectively 
equal to impossible.  But I do two things.  I show that I can in my
lifetime randomly generate a number that has an odds of being randomly
generated equal to, by the same token, impossible*[see note].
And I also make the claim that we are here.

My invalid assumption is that Golay's number means anything at all!
Which no one has ever demonstrated.  Various forms of Golay's number
have been reproduced for many years in numerous books as if the number
had been validly calculated by some knowledgeable expert.  However,
the person who allegedly originated the number knew virtually nothing
about molecular biology and biochemistry.  We still do not know enough
about it to formulate any number regarding the chance of life
spontaneously occurring!  All attempts to apply a statistical model
to abiogenesis are at best vacuous, and at worst, manipulative
claptrap!

I show that doing the impossible depends on how you define it.  I show
that "once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, however
improbable, must be the truth", is also false.

You may find it convenient to lump abiogenesis and evolution together,
and may do it honestly, as you claim in a previous post.  But your
convenience can be viewed as a deceitful way to attack Evolution by
tying it to something that is not demonstrable.  Because even if 
someday life is created in the lab, that will not confirm that that
is the way that life started.  Abiogenesis, on this planet, likely
is unconfirmable.  It is also not, at present, statistically 
analyzeable.  My post was to show that such number games are just
that, games, and they have no basis in reality.

: By saying, "you had to roll one of those combos," what you're really
: saying is that abiogenesis/evolution must have happened because we're
: here.

No, that is not what I am saying.  I am saying that we are here, 
therefore something must have happened that put us here.  The posters
of large numbers "prove" that abiogenesis is impossible and
therefore 'God must'a done it'.  However, I will make the claim that
evolution happened, because all of the evidence supports that claim,
and it still continues to happen today.  Therefore, evolution is
a SUPERB scientific theory, and abiogenesis is a TENTATIVE scientific
theory, and the two are not congruent, except in the minds of their
detractors.  Your convenience is very inconvenient to me, because 
each time you utilize it, I must disabuse you of it.

: (A) 1.  It is observed that life exists.

True.

: (B) 2.  Abiogenesis/evolution is proposed as a theory to explain how
:         that life came into existence.

False.  a. Abiogenesis is proposed as a theory to explain how that life
	came into existence.
	b. Evolution is proposed as a theory to explain how that life
	diversified into the numerous species that we see today.

:     3.  It is observed that the theory in (2) is exceedingly improbable,
:         and in fact mathematically impossible.

False.	It is observed that the mathematics used to prove (amended 2.part a)
	impossible is vacuous.  It is shown that it is possible to 
	conduct mathematically impossible experiments using flawed
	reasoning.  It is observed that nobody on the net appears to have
	any idea how the big number that shows the odds of abiogenesis was
	calculated in the first place, but that a endless parade of TAE's
	never tire of using it as a piece of useful information.

:     4.  It is claimed that, since the life exists, therefore no matter
:         how improbable the theory in (2), it must have happened.

False.	Spontaneous generation of life was never claimed, by me.  I simply
	claim that the odds give by WICS are not valid.  I show that I can
	lie just as easily, albeit poorly, using the same kind of 
	manufactured reasoning.

: Do you see why I sincerely see this as circular reasoning?

No.  Given that only 1 of 4 statements is true, I see that you are
batting .250 in 'rob derrick exegesis.

: You are using
: what you're trying to explain (1) as proof!

No.  I am not even trying to prove it.  My belief about the strength of
the current theories of abiogensis is that they are not, at all, strong.
But they are interesting.  On the other hand, the theory that life was
created by a supernatural being is by no means any more compelling.
That this being is the demiurge of the Old Testament is even less
compelling.  Not impossible, mind you, but lacking evidence, not a
bet I would care to make.

[re: the 'every throw a straight' fallacy]
:> Isn't lying with probabilities fun?

: Sometimes, but it's bad math.  :-)

On this we agree, and that my friend, is indeed the theme of the whole post.

[requoting the original post]
I write:
:>But, in a related question, what is the probability that a human
:>evolved from the primal muck?  If you think it is the same answer as
:>the previous probability question, then you don't understand probability.

The trap that was obviously easy to fall into was the assumption that by
primal muck, I meant lifeless.  To flog the horse one more time, Evolution,
in our context, does not talk about non-life (although it does concern
itself with the thorny question of the definition of life).  Evolution
says that from self-replicating molecules in the primal muck, everything
that we call life today issued forth.  And if, as the evidence suggests,
the theory of Evolution reflects reality, then the odds of it occurring
are moot, because...

:>Bob Bales writes:
:>: >Evolution, according to the theory, could have produced life without
:>: >vertabrates.  It didn't.  Since evolution could have produced a result which
:>: >doesn't exist, the probability of it producing the result which does exist 
:>: >(which Matt has labeled p) is < 1.

of Bob Bales' fallacy.  Where it says "is < 1", it should read "was < 1".
Any gambler who really understands odds could tell you the same.  W.C.
Fields said it simply, when asked if poker was a game of chance -
"Not the way I play it."  Odds does not represent true possibilities,
but rather only uncertainties regarding those possibilities.

rob derrick

*[note: in Mathematics, this concept, the impossibility of choosing
	a number, as in, "let x be a real number...", is known.  When
	faced with an impossibility that is self-evidently true, one
	creates an axiom to cover it.  This one is called "The Axiom
	of Choice."  I had even limited myself to 10^450.  The Axiom
	of Choice allows me to choose amongst the infinity of numbers,
	beside which, Golay's Number pales to insignificance.