>Well I seem to have gotten myself into trouble on my very first post. I am
>definitely guilty of making a comment which is open to all sorts of
>interpretation. For that I apologize. Being a mathematician myself I have the
>highest regard for probability and its applications to science (some of my best
>friends are probability theorists :)). My particular reference, in my previous
>post, pertained to the probability that a self-replicating organism could
>evetually evolve from the primordial conditions that existed at the earth's
>early life. As I recall, the argument I saw a year ago showed that the chance
>was too low to allow for any meaningful life to exist today. This is what
>impressed me at that time. My recent reconsideration of these arguments have
>resulted from arguments I've seen (perhaps on this reflector) which has
>effectively challenged some of the premises in the arguments (e.g. the
>assumption that only one functional protein can perform a given task).
>Simply put, I am now more 'cautious' when encoutering these arguments, but
I _do
>not_ discount them.
Sorry Jim, that was not a response to you, just to those who suggest that
probability arguments have no place in consideration of origins, an attitude
that begs the response, "then considerations of origin have no place in
science". I have found the discounting of probability assertions with
respect to origins to be a rather self-serving attitude, since the same
individuals who accuse crationists of misusing probability generally turn
around and use the argument "what is the probability that all of you would
be sitting in this room [or whatever] and yet here you are!", a misuse of
probability on a much grander scale. The same individuals do not then turn
around and show us what is the proper way to apply probability to the study
of origins, which convinces me that either they don't want to face the
consequences, or they recognize the alternative that origins is not amenable
to probability and thus is outside the realm of science.
Yockey has clearly shown that it is safe to assume a probability of zero for
any proposed scenario for the spontaneous origin of life, at least to my
biased satisfaction.
Art
http://chadwicka.swac.edu