Posted: Mar 16, 2010 11:45 am
rainbow wrote: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.
Of course I'm talking probability, we are after all discussing chemistry. I have no idea of how "improbable" they might be. I didn't even say that they are improbable. I'm not getting to that conclusion (I let competent chemist do such calculations). Explain exactly how non-zero outcome equates "improbable".
rainbow wrote: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.
Yet again, what part of "I don't say that they are required" did you fail to comprehend? You have failed to understand that we've got a set of about this size. That's it. We've got a sample space, and it's big. If a big sample space is "required", it is only in required in attaining a higher level of probability, in this case probably to counter idiotic statements made by others, like "there's no new life in this jar of peanut butter" (which is an oh-so-stupid statement on several levels more). Your statements about how small any given sample is rather irrelevant to this (other than that the smaller event, the more events are likely in the space), and only demonstrates that you don't understand Calilassiea's arguments at all.