Thread: Abiogenesis

Ive been using an argument for Abiogenesis for some time now where I have repeatedly stated that if Abiogenesis can happen, it will eventually happen.. The reason being is that if you take any probability and multiple it by an infinite number, that probability automatically becomes an infinite result.
Is this a good argument to use for it?

(Its in response to people saying that the odds of this happening are 1/100,000,000,000)

A creationist's universe is less than infinite. They can't come to terms with infinity. Many minds can't, and I guess that's why Creation was dreamed up in the first place.

i don't see why people keep harping on about how much time is needed and then using statistics - given the correct environmental circumstances chemical reactions cna happen virtually instantaneously, especially at high temperatures

chemistry is not the random collision of atoms or molecules creationists make it out to be
the thing you have to remember is that when you accept the premises of your opponent, you've already lost half the battle, because you let him decide on the venue and the weapons for the fight + what will count as a victory

the chances for it have happened are 100%.

It just kills me when creationists come up with it being so improbable to have been impossible. Otherwise educated people get the huge numbers but immediately default to their religious/denial mode.


Read my sig.

Originally Posted by verzen

The reason being is that if you take any probability and multiple it by an infinite number, that probability automatically becomes an infinite result. Is this a good argument to use for it?

If the probability is zero, then the result is zero.

but we know that the probability of abiogenesis is not zero, otherwise we wouldn't be here to discuss it

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Talk Origins!

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010_2.html

Originally Posted by C_Sensei

It just kills me when creationists come up with it being so improbable to have been impossible. Otherwise educated people get the huge numbers but immediately default to their religious/denial mode.


Read my sig.

your sig only shows that you despise the world around you. 200 years from now Islam may take over the entire planet. I doubt you'd want to be born then...

the laws of Biochemistry do moderate A LOT more than the simply "it was random chance" deal, eliminating a lot of the probabilities that you lot seem to be fussing with.

Originally Posted by marnixR

but we know that the probability of abiogenesis is not zero, otherwise we wouldn't be here to discuss it

In that case the probability is one. In either case the original argument as stated is flawed.

Originally Posted by paralith

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Talk Origins!

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010_2.html

exactly - as the professional poker player said when he was accused of playing games of chance : "chance had precious little to do with it"

I despise that in a modern technological age, there is still so much religion around!
How could people possibly be that stupid when there is education readily available!

It would be an utter nightmare that we slip back into a Dark Age of religion once more! All the Paleontological work that has been done would be forcibly wrecked.
Can you imagine? Fossils deliberately destroyed. It would be the library of Alexandria all over again only Mega worse. At least the intelligent would still be able to realize how abiogenesis happened.

That is what I despise - that I don't live in an age that's mostly free of idiots.

Yeah the probabilistic arguments put forward by creationists usually misunderstand both the concept of abiogenesis as it is hypothesised (as opposed to how they assume it) and an even more fundamental misunderstanding of probability.

Originally Posted by C_Sensei

I despise that in a modern technological age, there is still so much religion around!
How could people possibly be that stupid when there is education readily available!

It would be an utter nightmare that we slip back into a Dark Age of religion once more! All the Paleontological work that has been done would be forcibly wrecked.
Can you imagine? Fossils deliberately destroyed. It would be the library of Alexandria all over again only Mega worse. At least the intelligent would still be able to realize how abiogenesis happened.

That is what I despise - that I don't live in an age that's mostly free of idiots.

For all we know, such an age is not practically possible. Not sure if anyone's ever studied the viability of an entirely sceptical/atheistic society in a scientific manner, but my hunch would be that there'll always be a proportion of any sufficiently large population who will adhere to some form of religious or magical thinking.

There's also the minor fact that only creatures that exist will even be capable of pondering the question in the first place. It's kind of like if only people who won the lottery were able to think about the odds of winning the lottery.

Originally Posted by Scifor Refugee

There's also the minor fact that only creatures that exist will even be capable of pondering the question in the first place. It's kind of like if only people who won the lottery were able to think about the odds of winning the lottery.

Or a fish in a pond wondering at how well suited that little pond is to his existence...

Trying not to get off topic...abiogenesis itself was pretty much unsuspected and unknown let's say 200 years ago. But today, thanx to alot of science, most of the intelligent people (who don't deliberately practice delusion) know it has happened.

While it seems to me that science was championed and upheld much more in my younger years and seems alot more readily ridiculed today; we can at least be confident that there are enough scientists (who by definition must be athiests) that we proceed our studies and history of life on Earth due to abiogenesis.

I look forward to a time when scientists outnumber the "uneducated and brainless layman* " instead of the other way around.

I would hope for a pretty good education-driven eradication of religion for most of the population by about 200 years from now. But yes, I realize we could easily slip into another Dark Age. Given the current trend of aggressive religion pushing in the States, - frighteningly it's not a way-out improbability anymore.



* thank you to Bill Watterson