Posted: Mar 19, 2010 7:20 am
rainbow wrote:
The article attacks the Creationist's argument by pointing out that it is based on unsupported assumptions.
Nothing wrong with that.
...but then it proceeds to make its own calculations based on unsupported assumptions.
Do you not see the Screaming Irony in that?
Not really. Cali didn't hide that they were assumptions but declared them directly. There is also plenty of information available that can be used to verify if they are reasonable or not and more importantly why. It is also usually pretty evident if the assumptions are reasonable estimates or not. Most people could pretty quickly figure out how many litres of water are in the oceans to a particular depth (a very large number, even if you pick a very shallow depth), avagadro's constant is also not in dispute (another very large number), so even before you look at concentration you know the result is going to be a very large number. In fact the concentration could be very very tiny and it wouldn't stop the result from being a very large number.
Also it's pretty clear that he was not stating that those were the actual values, but was just using them to demonstrate a mathematical principal. It doesn't really matter what values you use to do that, it will still prove the point. And where he thinks they are reasonable estimates for the purpose he says why, but its ok for him to expect that most people would already know why they are reasonable and if not the details behind it, then the ability to find those details themselves.
If you recall, this was the main point of his post:
... the Serial Trials Fallacy consists of assuming that only one participant in an interacting system is performing the necessary task at any one time. While this may be true for a lone experimenter engaged in a coin tossing exercise, this is assuredly NOT true of any system involving chemical reactions, which involves untold billions of atoms or molecules at any given moment.
I think the remaining content of the post demonstrates that concept adequately. It is a difference between 1 and a lot more than one. It doesn't matter if the "lot more than one" is 3.0730 × 1043 or 3.0730 × 1040 or even 3.0730 × 1030, it is still demonstrating the point, ie that there would have been many many billions of simultaneous trials taking place and that's even before you take into account time.
While the ability to identify assumptions is important, it is also important to be able to evaluate which assumptions are trivial and which are going to have a major effect on your conclusion. Both of these are where creationists seem to have difficulties.