Posted: Mar 16, 2010 10:49 am
Newmark wrote:We're talking probability, why do you insist on using "required"? What part of "I don't say that they are required" didn't you get? Only one die roll is required to get a 6, but no amount of die rolls absolutely guarantees a six. What you don't seem to get is that several die rolls amounts to a better probability of at least one 6, or at least one of any other outcome for that matter.
You're talking probability. From what I can gather you're saying that the reactions leading to life on Earth were 'improbable'. I'm just wondering how you get to that conclusion.
This means that as long as the chance of an event to yield a specific chemical reaction is more than zero, having several events necessarily increases the probability of the specific outcome. This means that comparing a small set of events ("a micron-sized pore in a volcanic vent", for "a very short period, perhaps hours or days") is rather insignificant if the actual set of events is much larger (a planet's worth of similar environments, for ~100 million years).
You've failed to explain why such a large set of events is required.