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The Earth - too many coincidences for life to have evolved

nnmartin

Well-Known Member
If we take the Earth as a complete living system then it seems unlikely all to have come about through evolution.

Not only did we have random chemicals forming together to create DNA but we also had all the other parts of the equation just happening to be there at the right place and time.

I am talking about water and all its myriad properties, the atmosphere, climate and soil for example all being perfect at the same time as life just spontaneously erupting.

seems rather a bizarre coincidence doesn't it?

More like a deliberate coming together of elements aided by mysterious powers.

To think otherwise is surely the religion of denial.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
If we take the Earth as a complete living system then it seems unlikely all to have come about through evolution.

Not only did we have random chemicals forming together to create DNA but we also had all the other parts of the equation just happening to be there at the right place and time.

I am talking about water and all its myriad properties, the atmosphere, climate and soil for example all being perfect at the same time as life just spontaneously erupting.

seems rather a bizarre coincidence doesn't it?

More like a deliberate coming together of elements aided by mysterious powers.

To think otherwise is surely the religion of denial.
Your probability calculations are irrefutable!
 

cablescavenger

Well-Known Member
  1. seems rather a bizarre coincidence doesn't it?
  2. More like a deliberate coming together of elements aided by mysterious powers.
  3. To think otherwise is surely the religion of denial.

  1. A lot less bizarre than magic.
  2. So you want to explain something you do not understand with an ID argument by introducing mysterious powers, that compliment your beliefs.
  3. To think otherwise is surely the denial of religion?
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Any discussion like this, where we try to figure out what happened based on probabilities, is useless without considering the relative probabilities of each possibility.

It's also useless without a reasonable estimate of the probabilities involved, which I don't see here so far.
 

Krok

Active Member
If we take the Earth as a complete living system then it seems unlikely all to have come about through evolution.
Not at all. All the evidence we have indicate that humans involved from other forms. All the evidence indicate that all current life evolved from unicellular organisms.
Not only did we have random chemicals forming together to create DNA....
All the empirical evidence indicate that there was no life on earth at first, then organic molecules then prokaryotes. Do you have any evidence that there was something else?
.. but we also had all the other parts of the equation just happening to be there at the right place and time.
Well, it seems like the organic molecules had around 12 billion years to be at the right place at the right time. They are even made in stars, you know?
I am talking about water and all its myriad properties, the atmosphere, climate and soil for example all being perfect at the same time as life just spontaneously erupting.
Life didn't erupt. It developed.
...seems rather a bizarre coincidence doesn't it?
Not as bizarre as a ghost poofing things into existence.
More like a deliberate coming together of elements aided by mysterious powers.
Chemistry and physics are not mysterious powers anymore. We've learned a lot these past few hundred years.
To think otherwise is surely the religion of denial.
You've got a very strange definition of religion. Making your own definition up to build your straw-man?
 

camanintx

Well-Known Member
If we take the Earth as a complete living system then it seems unlikely all to have come about through evolution.
The odds of any single individual in this world winning the lottery on a specific date are also extremely unlikely, yet somehow someone always seems to win!
 

tumbleweed41

Resident Liberal Hippie
If we take the Earth as a complete living system then it seems unlikely all to have come about through evolution.

Not only did we have random chemicals forming together to create DNA but we also had all the other parts of the equation just happening to be there at the right place and time.

I am talking about water and all its myriad properties, the atmosphere, climate and soil for example all being perfect at the same time as life just spontaneously erupting.

seems rather a bizarre coincidence doesn't it?

More like a deliberate coming together of elements aided by mysterious powers.

To think otherwise is surely the religion of denial.
One can postulate the odds of an event occurring in the future, and as long as that event does not break the laws that govern the universe, it is possible for the event to occur. Even if the odds are seemingly impossibly stacked against it.
Conversely, the odds of something occurring in the past that have actually occurred are 100 percent.

In other words, If I calculate the odds of finding a pebble of a certain size, shape and color on a beach in Oregon on a certain date and time, the odds are infinitesimal.
But if I have already found that pebble, the odds that what I have described have already occurred is 100 percent.
 

Noaidi

slow walker
....seems rather a bizarre coincidence doesn't it?
As Douglas Adams said: "Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, it must have been made to have me in it."
 

Tristesse

Well-Known Member
If we take the Earth as a complete living system then it seems unlikely all to have come about through evolution.

Not only did we have random chemicals forming together to create DNA but we also had all the other parts of the equation just happening to be there at the right place and time.

I am talking about water and all its myriad properties, the atmosphere, climate and soil for example all being perfect at the same time as life just spontaneously erupting.

seems rather a bizarre coincidence doesn't it?

More like a deliberate coming together of elements aided by mysterious powers.

To think otherwise is surely the religion of denial.

It's not a bizarre coincidence at all. It happened. What do you think the odds of you getting getting a royal flush on the first deal in poker are? Seems almost implausible right? Well, what if you got a two of clubs, four of diamands, jack of hearts, six of diamands and a queen of spades on the first deal in poker? Bassically a hand that doesn't really have a lot of meaning in the game. Well, the odds are the same as getting a royal flush. You're judging the outcome as a goal, which may not be the case. When you think of the laws of nature, it actually seems highly plausible that life would form on earth.

What seems implausible to me are "mysterious powers" that no one can seem to have an understanding of.
 

Caladan

Agnostic Pantheist
If we take the Earth as a complete living system then it seems unlikely all to have come about through evolution.

Not only did we have random chemicals forming together to create DNA but we also had all the other parts of the equation just happening to be there at the right place and time.

I am talking about water and all its myriad properties, the atmosphere, climate and soil for example all being perfect at the same time as life just spontaneously erupting.

seems rather a bizarre coincidence doesn't it?
Why would you consider it bizarre and not in line with geological, chemical, meteorological, or other natural processes?

More like a deliberate coming together of elements aided by mysterious powers.
I think we do ourselves disservice when we attribute mysterious or magical qualities to natural processes. we better wise up to study what these processes are.

To think otherwise is surely the religion of denial.
I'm almost shocked you got this so reversed.

also I have to ask if you understand what evolution deals with. evolution only rarely deals with the origin of life.
 

Photonic

Ad astra!
Except that because the numbers are so large, it is almost inconceivable that it DIDN'T eventually occur, which it did, which is why we are here, which is why I can say this.

Math is phun.
 

Quiddity

UndertheInfluenceofGiants
Microevolution is without a doubt occuring today. It's not something that is up for argument; you can see it occur in a lab.
 
If we take the Earth as a complete living system then it seems unlikely all to have come about through evolution.

Not only did we have random chemicals forming together to create DNA but we also had all the other parts of the equation just happening to be there at the right place and time.

I am talking about water and all its myriad properties, the atmosphere, climate and soil for example all being perfect at the same time as life just spontaneously erupting.

seems rather a bizarre coincidence doesn't it?

More like a deliberate coming together of elements aided by mysterious powers.

To think otherwise is surely the religion of denial.

What do you mean by a complete living system? Conversely what qualifies as a incomplete living system? To my knowledge there is no standard against which to compare an ecosystem to determine whether it is to be considered complete or not. My experience from studying ecology is that ecosystems at any level are rather messy and dynamic things that simply are what they are at any given time.

As for the old goldilocks argument I can cite a personal examples of seemingly rare coincidence when I ran into a friend I've not seen for several years in a place I would never normally visit due to a convergence of largely random factors. I don't believe that a mysterious power was involved in running into a friend any more than I believe that it's necessary to invoke a mysterious power to account for the existence of conditions suitable for the emergence of life in a rather large universe.
 
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