From: robd@cherry09 (Robert Derrick)
Subject: Re: dawkins/_the selfish
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: 12 Aug 92 16:22:42 CDT

Mark Meyer (mmeyer@m2.dseg.ti.com) wrote:
: 
: 	Where does the "1 chance out of 10^113" number come from?
: Does _Life_ say?  What assumptions were made?  Did they take into
: account the fact that not all chemical combinations are valid?  How
: old was this number?

I don't know where the _Life_ book got their number, but it is small
compared to the numbers used by the ICR.  This is a repost of a
talk.origins article.  My apologies to any real mathematicians out
there for playing fast and loose with some terms.  Bear with me if
you can, and flame me soundly if I go overboard.

Subject: I Perform A Miracle (was: Bob and DNA)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Distribution: 

Definitions:
  Theistic Anti-Evolution: a religiously driven movement which attempts
	to discredit most of the scientific endeavor in most fields
	in the past 100 years.  However, for PR purposes, they call
	their movement Creation Science, and claim only to be trying
	to discredit evolution, even though they still do not even
	understand that the evolution of stars and the evolution
	of life do not represent the same use of the word evolution!
  Creation Science: a branch of biblical apologetics that proposes
	the axiom that you can support one belief by attacking and
	discrediting another.
  Probability: a tool of mathematics used by a few to hustle many.
	Misunderstood by most gamblers and TAE's.  Probability 
	represents the level of uncertainty regarding the possibility
	of the occurrence of a given event.
  WICS: "What Is Creation Science" by Morris and Parker

  P Number- 10^130: "number of particles possible in universe" -- WICS pg. 271
  E Number- 10^170: "the greatest conceivable number of separate
	events that could ever take place in all of space and time" --
	WICS pg. 270
  Golay's Number- 10^450: "the odds against such a [simplest imaginable
	replicating system] organizing itself randomly - WICS pg. 270
  THE Number- 10^280 (which is Golay's Number/Event Number): the chance
	of it ever happening anywhere -- WICS pg. 272

 [BONUS Question:  does anybody know where and how this Golay gomer
	came up with his number?  BTW, Golay was not a evolutionary
	scientist.  He was something in between a scientist and a
	dry cleaner, although I don't remember exactly what.]

Now aren't these BIG Numbers impressive?  Morris goes on to say that
if an event has a probability of less than 1 chance in E, then the
probability is effectively zero.  It will never happen.  And since
as all TAE's know, these numbers apply to Evolution, well then, it
obviously couldn't have happened.  Right?

Matt Brinkman writes:
:    The theory of evolution has a built in degree of indeterminism.

And so does the lottery, and slot machines.  But people who don't 
really understand probability never seem to be able to grasp even
some of the basic ideas of that very indeterminism.  If the person
just ahead of you just got a $10,000 Dollar Instant winner ticket,
that is an amazing event.  But it had to happen to someone, so not
really that amazing.  But you were there and that is amazing.  But,
has your chance of getting a $10,000 instant winner gone down?  Do
you buy a ticket here, or would you be better off going somewhere
else.  [Keeping your money is of course the correct answer, but...]

What is the possibility of a human evolving from a primal sea of
amoeba, over 4.5 billion years?  Astronomical.  But not being an
information scientist of the stature of Golay, I am not able to
calculate the exact number.  But I bet it is huge!

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.

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.

For example, here is a person of incalculable intellect, but who somehow
fails to understand the simplest application of probability.  He claims
that if a given event has multiple outcomes, then no one outcome can
have a probability of 1, also known as certainty.  I claim it does.
I just rolled a die.  It came up 6.  Ah, I now claim that the probability
of it being 6 was 1.  Bob Bales would claim, since 1 thru 5 were equally
likely, then the probability of 6 was 1 in 6.  Maybe you do too.
Of course, before I rolled the die, the probability was 1/6, and for
future rolls it will be 1/6 -- that is because probability represents
uncertainty -- but if I rolled a 6, then I am no longer uncertain!
Maybe you still don't buy it.

Well then, I will now accomplish something that either has a probability
of 1, or ZERO.  If the probability is one, as I claim, then I will have
done nothing extraordinary.  But if, as Bob Bales and other TAE's claim,
the probability is less than 1, based on the simple principles of
mathematics used in the above die experiment, then I will have
performed a Miracle, and you will fall down and worship me, of course.

Instead of a standard die, I will roll a 10-sided die (just to make
things as simple as possible).  And so the probability on any given
roll of getting any given digit, 0-9, is 1 in 10.  No argument there.
If I roll it two times and concatenate the digits, then the possible
outcomes are 0-99, and the probability is 1 in 100.  If I roll three
times... 0-999... 1 in 1000.  See how it works.  Ok, take a break,
I'll be back in a minute...

Ok, I'm done.  Now, I could have rolled it P exponent times (130),
or even E exponent times (170), but being the doughty pioneer type, 
I rolled it Golay exponent times.

Four Hundred and Fifty Times!  450 digits.  I now have a number.  It
is a big number.  For the honor and the glory now, everybody, what
was the probability that I would roll that exact number?

According to Bob Bales, the probability was 1 in 10^450.  In plain
terms, my children, I just did the impossible.  Remember that a
probability of 1 chance in E was effectively zero.  Do you have any
idea just how much bigger Golay's Number is than puny little E.
Even THE number, which represents the chance of life occurring anywhere
even once in all of space and time is minuscule compared to Mighty G.
And yet I have done this thing.  It is indeed a miracle, que no?

No, I am afraid I must burst the bubble.  Please put your adulation
back in your pockets.  No, this number that I rolled is simply one
number of G numbers I could have rolled.  I had to roll one of them,
and so, the probability that I would roll this one was 1 in G, before
I rolled.  This represented my uncertainty about the system, and
so, were I to try to predict this number a priori would have been
a miracle.  But after the fact, it becomes a fact, a done deed,
an event that has really occurred in space/time, and although
the chance of that exact number occurring was effectly zero, the
chance that it did occur was and is 1.

TAE's seem to think that after the fact, the original odds still
apply.  And it just ain't so, it don't work that'a'way.  However
unlikely a thing that happens is, it don't matter now, because it
did happen.  I rolled a number that was impossible to roll, unless
I chose to disdain ignorance.  And disdain it I did.

Suppose I flip a coin 1500 times.  The odds of 1500 heads coming up
is, well, 1 in 10^450.  1 in G.  You could try this experiment, and
although it would take a while to roll (and record) the sequence of
flips, you could do it in real time.  And when you were done, it
you got 1500 heads, and could convince yourself that t'were a fair
coin, then you would count yourself the recipient of a Heck Of A
Miracle.  However, if instead you get a seeming random selection
of heads and tails, you would sigh and put then coin away and
forget about it.  Don't you realize that the sequence of heads/tails
that you did get had the exact same probability as 1500 heads in
a row?  Therefore rejoice, for you are truly blessed.  It really is
all in how you look at it.

: Any reader who is not familiar with either the concept of "common descent" or
: "historicity" in evolution is, frankly, not capable of providing anything of
: use to a discussion of the theory ...

I would also add, anyone who cannot see that, except in the dimmest of
solipsistic philosophies, a event which has occurred has a probability
of 1 of having occurred.

rob derrick.

PS: I didn't actually roll the die 450 times.  To tell you the truth,
	I don't even have one handy.  But I could have, and that is
	enough.  At least for us mathematicians.

PPS: If the probability of rolling a 6 on one die is 1 in 6, then if
	I roll a pair of dice, the probability of getting at least one
        6 will double, which is 2 in 6, or 1/3.  Right, you just add the
	probabilities together.  So, let's see, three dice, I
	get 3 in 6 chances of getting at least one 6, right?  Ok
	that's 1/2.  4 dice is 4 in 6 -- 2/3.  5 dice, 5/6.  6 dice,
	6/6, or 1.  Which is certainty.  But doesn't this also 
	apply to all of the other numbers, 1 - 5.  So, there is
	a 1 in 1 chance of rolling a 6 with 6 dice, 1 in 1 for a 
	5, ... for a 4, ... 3, ... 2, ..., 1.  Why, with six dice,
	every throw is a straight!  Isn't that amazing?

	Isn't lying with probability fun?

Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc