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by NhanH 3573 days ago
One of the arguments for evolution involves some very non-trivial calculation on probability of whether it could result in the world we're in right now (not the maths itself, but the sequence of reasoning). It has been a while since I read Dawkin's books, but I don't think the books cover those kind of arguments. I think there are quite a bit of writing on lesswrong on the topic.

I've met creationists that believed in micro evolution: microbe can evolve to get certain resistance. But not the macro one, that is natural selection can result in human as we are right now. I was absolutely not able to justify the probability that it can happen.
3 comments
Scarblac 3573 days ago
If you shake a bucket of all kinds of different marbles for five minutes and then record the exact configuration they end up in, you'll find it was extremely unlikely that they'd end up in exactly that configuration.

Is that an argument for the current state of the marbles being created from nothing?

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combatentropy 3573 days ago
No, but what if you shook a bucket of marbles and out came the Statue of David?
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AstralStorm 3573 days ago
The probabilities cannot be calculated as we do not have interstellar travel required to inspect worlds that evolve separately from our own. So, that is no argument, just speculation. Same problem as with Drake's equitation and aliens.

A stronger argument is that we have managed to create building blocks of life from basic physics and chemistry. No superpowers required for that.

At least we can see how the stars begin, change and die.

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humanrebar 3572 days ago
> A stronger argument is that we have managed to create building blocks of life from basic physics and chemistry. No superpowers required for that.

No. Just some creators.

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AstralStorm 3572 days ago
No, just a few known laws of physics and chemistry. The conditions required are expected to happen spontaneously during planet formation.

We just don't have a handle on how common those conditions are. And many other subsequent conditions, for cellular life, for multicellular, for tissues and organs. Finally, for intelligence and sapience.

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humanrebar 3572 days ago
The point is that we cannot prove there is no creator by creating life. There is still a creator involved.

The 'best result' (assuming we're itching to disprove God) would be to show an origin of life is plausible. But even that doesn't prove where life on Earth actually came from.

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flukus 3573 days ago
> I've met creationists that believed in micro evolution: microbe can evolve to get certain resistance. But not the macro one, that is natural selection can result in human as we are right now. I was absolutely not able to justify the probability that it can happen.

At that point they aren't arguing against evolution so much as they are cosmology, geology, physics etc. The only difference between micro/macro evolution is the timescales involved and the timescale is what they don't accept.

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