Pope Benedict admits evidence for evolution

[Dan]

Not at all matas. not even almost squirming. This is your regular tactic.

When will you engage with actual fact and point. You haven't even almost made a valid point yet.

I havent trapped myself i knew what you were trying to do the entire time. I have made concessions because I am not fool enough to think I know it all. Howwever you know nothing but pretend you know it all.

So can you actually write a billion billion in numbers and do the math?

 

[Narcissus]

Its the same as the big bang theory all the matter of the planets etc that it swallowed are expelled.

So can you actually write a billion billion in numbers and do the math?
[/quote]
That would be the math that you seem to subscribe to, the one that says that "probability" means "certainty", yeah?

 

[Dan]

Since I am just readying to go to the airport and jump on a plane I will just briefly say the "chance and probibility" question is from a previous post from matas, his reasoning was that there is a 1 in a billion chance that life exists without the help of a creator or divine intelligence. He was postulating that he isnt willing to go on mere chance. Whereas his chance is equal and his ends in an even MORE improbable belief that a god exists.

 

[Narcissus]

Hmm... maybe I'm having a blonde moment. He makes up a statistic and from that statistic, you say "well therefore there are 1 billion planets with life". I don't know the accuracy of Mata's statistic, but your statement based on that statistic is incorrect.

That's what I'm calling you on, not the actual number: you're using the statistic incorrectly is all I'm saying. There are only two statistical 'values' that you can use to make a statement like "therefore there are X items with Y property"... 0 in 1 (0%) and 1 in 1 (100%).

Again, just to be clear, I don't care where the statistic comes from, it's your use of that statistic that I am saying is incorrect.

Not that I really care: I'm more interested in you giving me a link or two that supports your argument about collapsing black holes, rather than all the links I can found that counter it.

I hope you enjoy your trip: I'm looking forward to the next time I fly on one of those retrofitted QANTAS planes... it might actually make me not dread flying.

 

[Matabele]

Since I am just readying to go to the airport and jump on a plane I will just briefly say the \"chance and probibility\" question is from a previous post from matas, his reasoning was that there is a 1 in a billion chance that life exists without the help of a creator or divine intelligence. He was postulating that he isnt willing to go on mere chance. Whereas his chance is equal and his ends in an even MORE improbable belief that a god exists.

Interesting that you do two things:

1. Forget the real number we were dealing with.
2. Side step the issue of the effects of inter-connection and holistic existence.

This must be very important to you if you spend your USA trip debating it!

 

[ManlyBacker]

Interesting that you do two things:

1. Forget the real number we were dealing with.
2. Side step the issue of the effects of inter-connection and holistic existence.

This must be very important to you if you spend your USA trip debating it!

You've given and got nothing :blah: :lol: :cop:

 

[Utility Player]

I just re-read part of the god delusion and found that i slightly misquoted. There are a billion billion planets in the universe not that can support life, but because we exist that means there is at least a 1 in a billion chance. which means that there life should exist on a billion planets

part of the full quote
-----------
Suppose life's origin on a planet took place through a hugely improbable stroke of luck, so improbable that it happens on only one in a billion planets. The National Science Foundation would laugh at any chemist whose proposed research had only a one in a hundred chance of succeeding, let alone one in a billion. Yet, given that there are at least a billion billion planets in the universe, even such absurdly low odds as these will yield life on a billion planets. And - this is where the famous anthropic principle comes in - Earth has to be one of them, because here we are.
--------------------

a link to part of the chapter

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-dawkins/why-there-almost-certainl_b_32164.html

Ok in that link Dawkins states the factors that led to life on earth are perhaps too improbable for chemists to reproduce or to even devise a plausible theory for what happened.

How did the 1 in a billion chance come about and why is it not say a 1 in a billion billion chance ?

I could say that there are a billion billion planets in the universe and as far as I know there is life on only 1 so the chances are 1 in a billion billion. Now if we are undisputably contacted by another planet I will upgrade that to 2 in a billion billion.

 

[Matabele]

How did the 1 in a billion chance come about and why is it not say a 1 in a billion billion chance ?

faith?

 

[ManlyBacker]

Ok in that link Dawkins states the factors that led to life on earth are perhaps too improbable for chemists to reproduce or to even devise a plausible theory for what happened.

That is a very good point UP. So far I have never been happy with the primordial soup "something mysterious occurs" answer, although Miller's experiment apparently showed amino acids could be formed by passing an electric current through a flask of methane. Here is a link http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/SUA02/primordial_soup.html that gives some info on the thinking about the possible chemical composition at the time and what may have been possible.

 

[Narcissus]

Seeing as we're posting stuff to actually read (thanks MB, waiting on you still Dan ), and seeing as there didn't seem a real need for a new thread, I figured I may as well post a link to something I read a while back.

It's a short story by Isaac Asimov called 'The Last Question'. Apparently Asimov considered this to be his greatest short story (if not his greatest story full stop).

Anyway, I thought it was a good and interesting read, so here 'tis: http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html .

 

[Matabele]

So we're still waiting for this tantalising evidence of a billion billion interdependant planets are we?

 

[ManlyBacker]

The more I look at how stars work (eg our Sun) the more I think the likelihood of life evolving all over the universe is almost an absolute given. Stars form from dust, mostly hydrogen, and then basically collapse in on themselves through gravity and this then generates enormous heat. See http://science.hq.nasa.gov/universe/science/stars.html

Some of the particles that do not merge into the star form planets that orbit the star. Over billions of years the star actually grows larger and hotter, so that somewhere during this time a planet in orbit has a possibility of fitting into the goldilocks point where life could be possible.

Astronomers estimate there are about 100 thousand million stars in our galaxy - the Milky Way. Outside that, there are millions upon millions of other galaxies. It is actually estimated that something like 1022 to 1024 stars in the Universe. If each star had planets, say 10, then that gives us something like 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets, of which (my guess) at least 10% would have at some point reached a sweet point for life.

It could be said that some galaxies have such high levels of radiation or some other factor that would be a negative force for life. That may be true but to me there are huge numbers where life could evolve.

 

[Matabele]

And if life elsewhere is possible, what exactly does it prove theologically?

 

[ManlyBacker]

And if life elsewhere is possible, what exactly does it prove theologically?

The irrelevance of theology, except where it could be a discourse on cosmology

 

[Matabele]

Hardly. When we speak of "life" and "creation" we are speaking of the cosmos anyway aren't we?

 

[ManlyBacker]

Hardly. When we speak of \"life\" and \"creation\" we are speaking of the cosmos anyway aren't we?

Hardly. From Wikipedia:
Theology finds its scholars pursuing the understanding of and providing reasoned discourse of religion, spirituality and God or the gods. The origin of the word theology comes from late middle English (originally applying only to Christianity) from French théologie, from Latin theologia, from Greek: θεολογία, theologia, from θεός, theos or God + λόγος or logos, "words", "cause", "sayings," or "discourse" + suffix ια, ia, "state of", "property of", "place of". It is widely understood to mean literally "the study of God."

Theology also covers cosmology from a where did we come from point of view - and then linking it to discussions about god(s). Cosmology is the scientific study of the large scale properties of the Universe as a whole and endeavors to use the scientific method to understand the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the entire Universe.

 

[Matabele]

Yes, but did "God" create this planet or the cosmos?

 

[ManlyBacker]

Nah

 

[Matabele]

So the singular cosmos happened by chance?

 

[Dan]

we have already discussed the chance idea matas